THE STORY OF 
THE SOIL 

V 

CYRIL G.HOPKINS 





Class 
Book. 



3<5fi 



H 



Copyiight}^^. 



^ 



COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE STORY OF THE SOIL 




Left behind at Winterhine. 



THE STORY OF 
THE SOIL 

From the Basis of Absolute Science 
and Real Life 

BY 

CYRIL G. HOPKINS 

Author of ^'Soi/ Fertility and Permanent Agriculture' • 




BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 
191 I 



Copyrig-ht, lyio, by Richard i>. Badger. 



All Rights Reserved. 






The Gorham Press, Bostom, U. S. A. 



©CIA2737;-:' 



TO MY WIFE 



PREFACE 

Truth Is better than fiction; and this true story 
of the soil is written in co-operation with the Press 
of America and in competition with popular fiction. 

The scenes described exist; the references given 
can all be found and verified; and the data quoted 
are exact, although some of the story dates antedate 
the scientific data. 

As a rule the names employed are substitutes, but 
the general localities are as specified. 

If the Story of the Soil should ever fall into the 
hands of any Individual who suspects that he has 
contributed to Its Information, the author begs that 
he will accept as belonging to himself every graci- 
ous attribute and take it for granted that anything 
of opposite savor was due to autosuggestion. 

Cyril G. Hopkins. 

University of Illinois, 
Urbana. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

/ The Old South n 

// Forty Acres in the Corn Belt 14 

/// Lincoln's View of Agriculture. . . 18 

IV Life's Choice 25 

V Worn Out Farms 28 

VI The Musicale 33 

VII A Bit of History 37 

VIII Westover - 40 

IX The Black Peril 51 

X The Slave and the Freeman 56 

IX Judgment is Come 63 

XII The Restoration 67 

XIII Why Percy Went to College 78 

XIV A Lesson in Farm Science 81 

XV Coeducation loi 

XVI Past Self-redemption 114 

XVII More Problems 119 

XVIII Closer to Mother Earth 131 

XIX From Richmond to Washington. . 143 

XX A Lesson in Optimism 146 

XXI In the Office of the Chief I49 

XXII The Chemisfs Laboratory 157 

XXIII Mathematics Applied to Agricul- 
ture ^6^ 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

XXIV The Nation's Capitol, . ._ 165 

XXV A Lesson on Tobacco 173 

XXVI Another Lesson on ^Tobacco 180 

XXVII Eighteen to One 186 

XXVIII Farmer or Professor 192 

XXIX The Ultimate Comparison 201 

XXX ''Stone Soup'' 222 

XXXI Theories Versus Facts 234 

XXXII Guessing and Gassing 240 

XXXIII The Diagnosis and Prescription . . 255 

XXXIV Planning for Life 261 

XXXV Sealed Lips 275 

XXXVI Hard Times 278 

XXXVII Harder Times 287 

XXXVIII An Awakening Dream. ........ 310 

XXXIX Honey Without Wax 314 

XL Inspiration 316 

XLI The Kindergarten 321 

XLII Advance Information 343 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Left behind at JVinterhine Frontispiece^^ 

One plant with no plant food, and one with all 
the essential elements provided, and still 
another with hut one element lacking. All 
planted the same day and cared for alike . . io6 

Corn on peatty swamp land, yielding 45 bushels 
per acre when potassium was applied, but 
complete failure on the untreated plot . ... 108 

Tubercles about as large as peas on the roots of 
the cowpea. One tubercle may contain a 
million germs 206 

A world of work and 1 1 bushels of oats per acre 282 

''/ wish you could have seen the untreated check 

strips'' 343 

*^But I cut where it yielded two tons per acre'* . . 344 

Limestone and raw rock phosphate makes the 

diference between clover and no clover . . 348 



The Story of The Soil 



CHAPTER I 
The Old South 

PERCY JOHNSTON stood waiting on the 
broad veranda of an old-style Southern 
home, on a bright November day in 
1903. He had just come from Blue 
Mound Station, three miles away, with 
suit-case in hand. 
"Would it be possible for me to secure room and 
board here for a few days?" he inquired of the 
elderly woman who answered his knock. 

"Would it be possible?" she repeated, apparently 
asking herself the question, while she scanned the 
face of her visitor with kindly eyes that seemed to 
look beneath the surface. 

"I beg your pardon, my name is Johnston,— Percy 
Johnston — " he said with some embarrassment and 
hesitation, realizing from her speech and manner 
that he was not addressing a servant. 

"No pardon is needed for that name," she inter- 
rupted; "Johnston is a name we're mighty proud of 
here in the South." 

"But I am from the West," he said. 
"We're proud of the West, too; and you should 
feel right welcome here, for this is *Westovcr,' " 
waving her hand toward the broad fields surround- 
ing the old mansion house. "I am Mrs. West, or 
at least I used to be. Perhaps the title better be- 
longs to my son's wife at the present time; while I 
am mother, grandma, and great-grandmother. 

II 



12 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"Yes, sir, you will be very welcome to share our 
home for a few days if you wish; and we'll take you 
as a boarder. We used to entertain my husband's 
friends from Richmond, — and from Washington, 
too, before the sixties; but since then we have grown 
poor, and of late years we take some summer 
boarders. They have all returned to the city, how- 
ever, the last of them having left only yesterday; 
so you can have as many rooms as you like. 

"Adelaide!" she called. 

A rugged girl of seventeen entered the hall from 
a rear room. 

"This is my granddaughter, Adelaide, Mr. Johns- 
ton." 

Percy looked into her eyes for an instant; then 
her lashes dropped. He remembered afterward 
that they were like her grandmothers, and he found 
himself repeating, "The eye is the window of the 
soul." 

"My dear, will you ask Wilkes to show Mr. 
Johnston to the southwest room, and to put a fire 
in the grate and warm water in the pitcher?" 

"Thank you, that will not be necessary," said 
Percy. "I wish to see and learn as much as possible 
of the country hereabout, and particularly of the 
farm lands; and, if I may leave my suit-case to be 
sent to my room when convenient, I shall take a 
walk,— perhaps a long walk. When should I be 
back to supper." 

"At six or half past. My son Charles has gone 
to Montplain, but he will be home for dinner. 
He knows the lands all about here and will be glad, 
I am sure, to give you any information possible." 

With rapid strides Percy followed the private 
lane to the open fields of Westover. 

"Is he a cowboy, Grandma?" asked Adelaide, in 
a tone which did not suggest a very high regard for 



THE OLD SOUTH 13 

cowboys. "Anyway," she continued, detecting a 
shade of disapproval in the grandmother's face, *'he 
has a cowboy's hat, but he doesn't wear buckskin 
trousers or spurs." 

Percy's hat was a relic of college life. Two years 
before he had completed the agricultural course at 
one of the state universities in the corn belt. Some- 
what above the average in size, well proportioned, 
accustomed to the heaviest farm work, and trained 
in football at college, he was a sturdy young giant, 
— "strong as an ox and quick as lightning," in the 
exaggerated language of his football admirers. 



CHAPTER II 

Forty Acres in the Corn Belt 

PERCY JOHNSTON'S grandfather had 
gone west from "York State" and secured 
from the federal government a i6o-acre 
"Claim" of the rich corn belt land. His 
father had received through inheritance 
only 40 acres of this; and, marrying his 
choice from the choir of the local Lutheran congre- 
gation, he had farmed his forty and an adjoining 
eighty acres, "rented on shares," for only three 
years, when he was taken with pneumonia from ex- 
posure and overwork, and died within a week. 

Percy was scarcely a year old when his father was 
laid in the grave; but to the sorrowing mother he 
was all that life held dear. Existence seemed pos- 
sible to her only because she could bestow upon him 
her double affection and because the double duties 
which she took upon herself completely occupied her 
time. 

She was not in immediate financial need, for her 
husband had been able to put some money in the 
bank during the last year, after having paid for his 
"outfit;" the forty-acre farm was free from debt, 
but under the law it must remain the joint property 
of mother and child for twenty years. 

Wisely or unwisely she rejected every opportunity 
presented that would have given Percy a stepfather. 
As daughter and wife she had learned much of the 
art of agriculture, and, after some consultation with 
a neighbor who seemed to be successful, she made her 
own plans. 

In her make up, sentiment was balanced with sense. 
Even as a young wife she had sometimes driven th« 

14 



FORTY ACRES IN THE CORN BELT 15 

mower or the sell-binder to *'help-out," and she had 
found pleasure and health In such hours of out-door 
life. "I can work and not overwork," she said to 
her friends ; and in any case the crops seemed to grow 
better under the eye of the mistress. 

Some years she employed a neighbor boy or girl, 
and always hired such other help as she needed. 
Prices were sometimes low and crops were not always 
good; and only widowed mothers can know the full 
story of her labor, love and sacrifice. With Percy's 
help he was sent to school and finally to the univer- 
sity, choosing for himself the agricultural college, 
much to the surprise and disappointment of his de- 
voted mother. 

"Why," she asked, "why should my son go to 
college to study agriculture? Have you not studied 
farming in the practical school of experience all your 
life? Surely we have done as much as could be done 
on our own little farm; and you have also had the 
benefit of the longer experience of our best farmers 
hereabout, and of the accumulated wisdom of our 
ancestors. Oh, I had hoped and truly believed that 
you would become interested in engineering, or in 
medicine, or may be in the law. I cannot understand 
why you should think of going to college to study 
farming. Surely you already know more than the 
college professors do about agriculture." 

Percy's mother had too much good sense to have 
raised a spoiled boy. He had been taught to work 
and to think for himself. She loved her boy far bet- 
ter than her own life, — loved as only a widowed 
mother can who has risked her life for him, and who 
has given to him all her thought and all her energy 
from the best twenty years of her own life; but she 
had never let herself enjoy that kind of selfishness 
which prompts a mother to do for her child what he 
should be taught to do for himself. Despite his 



1 6 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

natural love of sport and the severe trials he had 
often brought to her patience and perseverance dur- 
ing his boyhood days, he had reached a development 
with the advance of youth that satisfied her high 
ideal. His love and appreciation and tender care for 
her repaid her every day, she told herself, for all the 
years of watching, working, waiting. Never before 
had he withstood her positive wish and final judg- 
ment. 

And yet it was she who had told him that he alone 
must choose his life work and his college course in 
preparation for that work; but, after the years of 
toil, she had not dreamed that he would choose the 
farm life. 

"My darling boy," she continued, "it leads to 
nothing. This little farm is poorer to-day than it 
was when your dear father and I came here to live 
and labor. To be sure, the lower field still grows as 
good or better crops than ever; but I can remember 
when that field was so wet and swampy that it could 
not be cultivated, and it was in the work of ditching 
and tiling that field," she sobbed, "that your father 
took the sickness that caused his death." 

Tears were in Percy's eyes as he put his arm about 
his mother and wiped her tears away. 

"But I must tell you what I know to be the truth," 
she went on quickly. "The older fields that your grand- 
father cultivated are less productive now^ than when 
he received them from our generous government. 
Indeed, it was your father's plan to continue to farm 
here only for a few years longer until he could save 
enough to enable him, with what we could have got- 
ten from the sale of our own forty, to go farther west 
and purchase a large farm of virgin soil. He realized, 
my Son, that even that part of his father's farm that 
was first put under cultivation was becoming distinctly 
reduced in productiveness. He remembered, too, the 



FORTY ACRES IN THE CORN BELT 17 

stories often repeated by your grandfather of the 
run-down condition of the once exceedingly fertile 
soils of the Mohawk Valley and other parts of New 
York State. 

"And you know, Percy, there were many Dutch 
farmers settled in New York. They were probably 
the best farmers among all who came to America 
from the Old World. I have heard your grandfather 
explain their use of crop rotation, and they under- 
stood well the value of clover and farm fertilizers. 
But with all of their skill and knowledge, the land 
grew poor, and now the very farm upon which 
Grandpa was born is not worth as much as the actual 
cost of the farm buildings. I hope you will consider 
all of this. The farm life is so unpromising for you, 
and there are such great opportunities for success in 
other lines. Still I feel that you must decide this ques- 
tion for yourself, my Son, but tell me why you would 
choose the life and work of a farmer." 



CHAPTER III 
Lincoln's View of Agriculture 

PERCY had listened without interrupting, 
grieved at her disappointment, and open 
to any reasoning that might change his 
mind. 

"Mother dearest," he said, "it was a 
year ago that you said I would have only 
till this fall to decide upon my college course and 
that it should be a special preparation for my life 
work. I have given much thought to it. You said 
that I should choose for myself, and I have not con- 
sulted much with others, but I have tried to con- 
sider the matter from different points of view. 

"You know the Christmas present you gave me 
of the Lincoln books?" 

"Yes, I know, and you have read them so much. 
I could not get you many books, but I knew there 
could be nothing better for my boy to read than the 
thoughts of that noble man. But, Percy dear, Lin- 
coln was a lawyer, and he rose from the lowest walk 
in life to the highest position in the country, and with 
much less preparation than my own boy will have. 
Suppose he had remained a farmer ! Surely no 
such success could ever have been reached. I am 
not so foolish as to have any such high hopes for 
you, Percy; but if you can only put yourself in the 
way of opportunity, and make such prepara- 
tion as you can to fill with credit some 
position of responsibility that may be offered 
you! I had truly hoped that your study of Lin- 
coln's life would influence yours. To me Lincoln 
was the noblest of all the noble men of our history, 

i8 



LINCOLN'S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 19 

and I doubt not of all history, save Him who came 
to redeem the world." 

Percy stepped to his little homemade bookcase 
and took a volume from the Lincoln set. 

"May I read you some words of Lincoln?" he 
asked. 

"Oh yes," she answered wonderingly. 

"On September 30th, 1859," said Percy, "Lin- 
coln gave an address at Milwaukee, before the State 
Agricultural Society of Wisconsin, and of all the 
addresses of Lincoln it seems to me that this Is the 
greatest, because It deals with the greatest material 
problem of the United States. I think I have 
scarcely heard a public address in which the speaker 
has not dwelt upon the fact that the farmer must 
feed and clothe the world; and it seems to me that 
the missionaries always speak of the famines and 
starvation of so many people in India and other old 
countries. Do you remember the lecture by the 
medical missionary? Well, would it not be better 
to send agricultural missionaries to India and China 
to teach those people how to raise crops? 

"I have read and reread this address more than 
any other in the Lincoln set. Let me read you some 
of the paragraphs I have marked. 

"After making some introductory remarks about 
the value of agricultural fairs, Lincoln began his 
address as follows: 

" *I presume I am not expected to employ the 
time assigned me In the mere flattery of 
the farmers as a class. My opinion of them, 
is that, In proportion to numbers, they are 
neither better nor worse than other people. 
In the nature of things they are more numerous 
than any other class; and I believe there are really 
more attempts at flattering them than any other, 
the reason of which I cannot perceive, unless it be 



to THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

that they can cast more votes than any other. On re- 
flection, I am not quite sure that there is not cause 
of suspicion against you in selecting me, in some sort 
a politician and in no sort a farmer, to address you. 

*' 'But farmers being the most numerous class, it 
follows that their interest is the largest interest. It 
also follows that that interest is most worthy of all 
to be cherished and cultivated— that if there be 
inevitable conflict between that interest and any 
other, that other should yield. 

" 'Again, I suppose that it is not expected of me to 
impart to you much specific information on agricul- 
ture. You have no reason to believe, and do not be- 
lieve, that I possess It; if that were what you seek in 
this address, any one of your own number or class 
would be more able to furnish it. You, perhaps, do 
expect me to give some general interest to the occa- 
sion, and to make some general suggestions on prac- 
tical matters. I shall attempt nothing more. And in 
such suggestions by me, quite likely very little will be 
new to you, and a large part of the rest will be pos- 
sibly already knoAvn to be erroneous. 

" 'My first suggestion is an inquiry as to the effect 
of greater thoroughness in all the departments of 
agriculture than now prevails in the Northwest — per- 
haps I might say in America. To speak entirely with- 
in bounds, It Is known that fifty bushels of wheat, or 
one hundred bushels of Indian corn, can be produced 
from an acre.' " 

Percy paused: "You know, Mother, that our corn 
has averaged some less than fifty bushels per acre for 
the last five years, and as you say, the lower field has 
been much better than the old land, and I think you 
are quite right In your belief that as an average the 
land is growing poorer although we cultivate better 
than we used to do, and our seed corn is of the best 
variety and saved with much care. But let me read 



LINCOLN'S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 21 

further : 

*' 'Less than a year ago I saw It stated that a man, 
by extraordinary care and labor, had produced of 
wheat what was equal to two hundred bushels from 
an acre. But take fifty of wheat, and one hundred of 
corn, to be the possibility, and compare it with the 
actual crops of the country. Many years ago I saw 
it stated, in a patent office report, that eighteen bush- 
els was the average crop throughout the United 
States; and this year an intelligent farmer of Illi- 
nois assured me that he did not believe the land har- 
vested in that State this season had yielded more 
than an average of eight bushels to the acre; much 
was cut, and then abandoned as not worth threshing, 
and much was abandoned as not worth cutting.' " 

''I know It Is true," said the mother, "that wheat 
was once very much grown in Central and Northern 
Illinois, but 1859 must have been an unusually poor 
year, for It was grown for twenty years after that, 
although It finally failed so completely that Its culti- 
vation has been practically abandoned in those sec- 
tions for nearly twenty years. However, the chinch 
bugs were a very Important factor In discouraging 
wheat growing and the land has been very good for 
corn, especially since the tile-drainage was put In; 
but on the whole Is It not as I told you?" 

"But note these statements," said Percy, turning 
again to the book: 

" 'It is true that heretofore we have had better 
crops with no better cultivation, but I believe that It 
Is also true that the soil has never been pushed up to 
one-half of its capacity. 

" 'What would be the effect upon the farming 
Interest to push the soil up to something near its full 
capacity?' " 

"But what can he mean," said the mother. "How 
can anyone do better than we have done ? We change 



22 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

our crops, and sow clover with the oats, and return 
as much as we can to the land. But let me hear 
further what Lincoln said:'* 

"Yes, Mother, this is what he said: 

*' 'Unquestionably it will take more labor to pro- 
duce fifty bushels of wheat from an acre than it will 
to produce ten bushels from the same acre ; but will 
it take more labor to produce fifty bushels from one 
acre than from five? Unquestionably thorough cul- 
tivation will require more labor to the acre ; but will 
it require more to the bushel? If it should require 
just as much to the bushel, there are some probable, 
and several certain, advantages in favor of the thor- 
ough practice. It is probable it would develop those 
unknown causes which of late years have cut down 
our crops below their former average. It is almost 
certain, I think, that by deeper plowing, analysis of 
the soils, experiments with manures and varieties of 
seeds, observance of seasons, and the like, these 
causes would be discovered and remedied. It is cer- 
tain that thorough cultivation would spare half, or 
more than half, the cost of land, simply because the 
same produce would be got from half, or frorn less 
than half, the quantity of land. This proposition is 
self-evident, and can be made no plainer by repeti- 
tions or illustrations. The cost of land is a great 
item, even in new countries, and it constantly grows 
greater and greater, in comparison with other items, 
as the country grows older.' " 

Percy paused and said : "If I understand correctly 
these words of Lincoln, the land need not become 
poor. But I do not know why land becomes poor. 
I do not know what the soil contains, nor do I know 
what corn is made of. We plow the ground and plant 
the seed and cultivate and harvest the crop, but I do 
not know what the corn crop, or any crop, takes from 
the soil. I want to learn how to analyze the soil and 



LINCOLN^S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 23 

crop and to find out If possible why soils become poor, 
in order, as Lincoln suggests, that the cause may be 
discovered and remedied." 

"It may be that the college professors could teach 
you in that way," said the mother, "but you know the 
farm life Is so full of work and so empty of mental 
culture." 

"I used to think so too," said Percy, "but I fear 
we have worked too much with our hands and too 
little with our minds ; that we have done much work 
in blindness as to the actual causes that control our 
crop yields; and that we have not found the mental 
culture that may be found in the farm life. Let me 
read again. These are Lincoln's words : 

" 'No other human occupation opens so wide a field 
for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor 
with cultivated thought, as agriculture. I know noth- 
ing so pleasant to the mind as the discovery of any- 
thing that is at once new and valuable— nothing that 
so lightens and sweetens toil as the hopeful pursuit 
of such discovery. And how vast and how varied a 
field is agriculture for such discovery! The mind, 
already trained to thought in the country school, or 
higher school, cannot fail to find there an exhaust- 
less source of enjoyment. Every blade of grass is a 
study; and to produce two where there was but one 
is both a profit and a pleasure. And not grass alone, 
but soils, seeds, and seasons — hedges, ditches, and 
fences— draining, droughts, and Irrigation — plowing, 
hoeing, and harrowing— reaping, mowing, and thresh- 
ing — saving crops, pests of crops, diseases of crops, 
and what will prevent or cure them — implements, 
utensils, and machines, their relative merits, and how 
to improve them — hogs, horses, and cattle — sheep, 
goats and poultry— trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, and 
flowers— the thousand things of which these are 
specimens— each a world of study within Itself. 



24 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

*' 'In all this book learning is available. A capac- 
ity and taste for reading gives access to whatever 
has already been discovered by others. It is the 
key, or one of the keys, to the already solved prob- 
lems. And not only so : it gives a relish and facility 
for successfully pursuing the unsolved ones. The 
rudiments of science are available, and highly avail- 
able. Some knowledge of botany assists in dealing 
with the vegetable world— with all growing crops. 
Chemistry assists in the analysis of soils, selection 
and application of manures, and in numerous other 
ways. The mechanical branches of natural phil- 
osophy are ready help in almost everything, but es- 
pecially in reference to implements and machinery. 

" 'The thought recurs that education — cultivated 
thought— can best be combined with agricultural 
labor, on the principle of thorough work; that 
careless, half-performed, slovenly work makes no 
place for such combination; and thorough work, 
again, renders sufficient the smallest quantity of 
ground to each man; and this, again, conforms to 
what must occur in a world less inclined to wars and 
more devoted to the arts of peace than heretofore. 
Population must increase rapidly, more rapidly than 
in former times, and ere long the most valuable of 
all arts will be the art of deriving a comfortable 
subsistence from the smallest area of soil. No com- 
munity whose every member possesses this art, can 
ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms. 
Such community will be alike independent of crown- 
ed kings, money kings, and land kings.' " 



CHAPTER IV 

Life's Choice 

PERCY read these words as though they 
were his own; and perhaps we may say 
they were his own, for, as Emerson 
says: "Thought is the property of him 
who can entertain it." 

The mother listened, first with won- 
der; then with deepened interest, which changed to 
admiration for the language and for her son, who 
seemed to be filled with the spirit which had led 
Lincoln to see the problems and the possibilities of 
the farm life in a light that was wholly new. 

"Surely those are noble thoughts," she said, 
"from a noble and wise man. I shall only hope that 
you will find some opportunity to make the best pos- 
sible of your life. We have such a small farm, and 
the land hereabout is all so high in price that to en- 
large the farm seems almost hopeless. In part be- 
cause of this difl^culty it had seemed to me that 
greater opportunities might be open for you in other 
lines. Don't you feel that you will be greatly handi- 
capped in the beginning?" 

"Perhaps," said Percy, "in some ways: but not in 
other ways. We hear on every hand that this is an 
age of specialists, that the most successful man can- 
not take time to prepare himself well for many dif- 
ferent lines of work; that he must make the best 
possible preparation in some one line for which he 
may have special talent or special interest; and then 
endeavor to go farther in that line than any one has 
gone before. When I first wrote to the State Uni- 
versity I asked how long a time would likely be re- 

25 



26 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

quired for me to complete all the subjects that are 
taught there, and the registrar replied that, if I could 
carry heavy work every year, I might hope to take 
all the courses now offered in about seventy years. 
In considering this point of preparation for future 
work, it has seemed to me that if I leave the farm 
life and devote myself to law or to engineering, I 
must in large measure sacrifice about ten years of 
valuable experience in practical agriculture. I have 
learned enough about farming so that I can manage 
almost as well as the neighbors; and without this 
knowledge, gathered, as you say, in the school of 
experience, I can see that serious mistakes would 
often be made. 

"You know that Doctor Miller bought the Bron- 
son farm two years ago. Well, he has been giving 
some directions himself concerning its management. 
He has had no experience in farming, and last year, 
after he had the new barn built, he directed his men 
to put the sheaf oats in the barn so they would be 
safe from the weather. He did not understand that 
oats must stand in the shock for two or three weeks 
to become thoroughly "cured" before they can safe- 
ly be even stacked out of doors ; and the result was 
that his entire oat crop rotted in the barn. 

"People who have lived always in the city some- 
times express the most amusing opinions of farm 
conditions so well understood even by a ten-year- 
old country boy. I recently overheard two travel- 
ing men remarking about the differences which they 
could plainly observe between the corn crops in dif- 
ferent fields as they rode past in the train. 

" 'Some fields have twice as good corn as other 
adjoining fields,' one remarked. 'How do you 
account for the difference,' asked the other. 'Oh, I 
suppose the one farmer was too stingy of his seed,' 
was the reply. 



LIFE'S CHOICE 27 

"I am convinced that there are hundreds or per- 
haps thousands of valuable facts that have been ac- 
quired through experience and observation by the 
average farm boy of eighteen or twenty years that 
would be of little or no value to him in most other 
occupations; and in this respect I should be handi- 
capped if I leave the farm life and begin wholly at 
the bottom in some other profession. Perhaps ag- 
riculture is not a profession, but I think it should be 
if the highest success is to be attained." 

"I surely hope you will be successful, Percy, and 
your reasoning sounds alright; but other occupations 
seem to lead to greater wealth than farming." 

"I very much doubt," replied Percy, "if there is 
any other occupation that is so uniformly successful 
as farming, in the truest sense. It provides con- 
stant employment, a good living, and a comfortable 
home for nearly all who engage in it; and as a rule 
they have made no such preparation as is required 
for most other lines of work. 

"But there is still another side to the farm life, 
Mother dear, or to any life for that matter. Your 
own life has taught me that to work for the love of 
others is a motive which directs the noblest lives. If 
agricultural missionaries are needed in India, they 
are also needed In parts of our own country where 
farm lands that were once productive are now great- 
ly depleted and in some cases even abandoned for 
farming; and if the older lands of the corn belt are 
already showing a decrease in productive power, we 
need the missionary even here. If I can learn how 
to make land richer and richer and lead others to 
follow such a system, I should find such satisfaction 
In the effort." 



CHAPTER V 

Worn Out Farms 

" "W "W" "y ELL, you found some mighty poor 

^ j^ / land, I reckon," was the greeting 

^/%/ Percy received from Grandma West 

Y V as he returned from his walk over 

Westover and some neighboring 

farms. 

"I found some land that produces very poor 
crops," he replied, ''but I don't know yet whether I 
should say that the land is poor." 

''Well, I know it's about as poor as poor can be; 
but it was not always poor, I can tell you. When 
I was a girl, if this farm did not produce five or six 
thousand bushels of wheat, we thought it a poor 
crop; but now. If we get five or six hundred bushels, 
we think we are doing pretty well. My husband's 
father paid sixty-eight dollars an acre for some of 
this land, and it was worth more than that a few years 
later and, mind you, in those days wheat was worth 
less and niggers a mighty sight more than they are 
nowadays; but, somehow, the land has just grown 
poor. We don't know how. We have worked hard, 
and we have kept as much stock as we could, but we 
could never produce enough fertilizer on the farm to 
go very far on a thousand acres. 

"Yes, Sir, we have just about a thousand acres here, 
and we still own It,— and with no mortgage on it, 
I'm mighty glad to say. But, laws, the land is poor, 
and you can get all the land you want about here for 
ten dollars an acre. There comes Charles, now. He 
can tell you all about this country for more than 
twenty miles, I reckon. 

28 



WORN OUT FARMS 29 

"Wilkes!" A negro servant answered the call, 
and took the horse as Charles West stopped at the 
side gate. 

"Wilkes was born here in slave times, nigh sixty 
years ago," she continued. "He is three years older 
than my son Charles. He has remained with us ever 
since the war, except for a few months when he went 
away one time just to see for sure that he was free 
and could go. But he came back mighty homesick 
and he'll want to stay here till he dies I reckon. 

"Charles, this is Mr. Johnston, Percy Johnston, 
as he says; but he thinks he is no kin of General Joe 
or Albert Sidney, He's been looking at the land 
hereabout, but I don't think he'll want any of it after 
seeing the kind of crops we raise." 

With this introduction, the mother disappeared 
within the house, and Charles took her seat on the 
vine-covered veranda. 

"I feel that I owe an apology to you, Sir," said 
Percy, "for presenting myself here with bag and 
baggage, and asking to share the hospitality of your 
home, with no previous arrangements having been 
made ; but by chance I met your friend, Doctor God- 
dard, on the train, and, in answer to my Inquiry as 
to whom I could go to for correct information con- 
cerning the history and present condition and value 
of farm lands in this section of the country, he ad- 
vised me to stop off at Blue Mound Station and con- 
sult with you. Had I known that you were to be in 
Montplaln to-day, of course I should have gone di- 
rectly there. Your mother very graciously consented 
to receive me as a belated summer boarder, a kind- 
ness which I greatly appreciate, I assure you. 

"My mother and I have a small farm in Illinois, 
— so small that it would be lost in such an estate as 
Westover, but the price of land is very high in the 
West at the present time; and I am really consider- 



30 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ing the question of selling our little forty-acre farm 
and purchasing two or three hundred acres in the 
East or South. My thought is that I might secure 
a farm that was once good land, but that has been 
run down to such an extent that it can be bought for 
perhaps ten or twenty dollars an acre. I should want 
the land to be nearly level so that it would not be 
difficult to prevent damage from surface washing. I 
should prefer, of course, to purchase where there is 
a good road and not more than five miles from a rail- 
way station. 

"If I secure such a farm, it would be my purpose 
to restore its fertility. If possible I should want to 
make the land at least as productive as it ever was, 
even in its virgin state." 

"Well, Sir," said Mr. West, "if you could accom- 
plish your purpose and ultimately show a balance on 
the right side of the ledger, it would be a work of 
very great value to this country. There will be no 
difficulty in securing such land as you want with loca- 
tion and price to suit you ; but I think that you should 
know in advance that older men than you have pur- 
chased farms hereabout with very similar intentions, 
but with the ultimate result that they have lost more, 
financially, than we who are native to the soil; for, 
while we were once well-to-do and are now poor, we 
still own our land, impoverished as it is. However, 
the farm still furnishes us a comfortable living, sup- 
plemented, to be sure, with some income from other 
sources. 

"I am very willing to give as much information as 
I can regarding our lands and the agricultural condi- 
tions and common practices, although I fear that this 
knowledge will discourage you from making any in- 
vestments in our worn-out farms. If you still de- 
cide to make the trial, I surely hope you will be suc- 
cessful, for we need such an object lesson above all 



WORN OUT FARMS 3! 

else. 

"I assume that you will wish to locate near a town 
of considerable size, In order that you can haul 
manures from town, and perhaps some feed also; 
and have a good market for your milk and other 
products." 

"No, Sir," said Percy, "I should prefer not to 
engage In dairying, and I do not wish to make use of 
fertilizer made from my neighbors' crops. We have 
some object lessons of that kind In my own state ; and 
I have no doubt that some can be found In this state 
who feed all they produce on their own land and per- 
haps even larger amounts of feed purchased from 
their neighbors, or hauled from town, and who, In 
addition to using all of the farm fertilizer thus pro- 
duced, haul considerable amounts of such materials 
from the livery stables In town. With much hard 
work, with a good market for the products of the 
dairy and truck garden, and with business skill In pur- 
chasing feed from their neighbors when prices are 
low, such men succeed as Individuals; but do they 
furnish an object lesson which could be followed by 
the general farmer?" 

*'I had not looked at the matter from that point of 
view," said Mr. West, "but It is plain to see that on 
the whole there can be only a small percentage of such 
farmers ; and in reality they are a detriment to their 
neighbors who permit their own hay and grain to be 
hauled off from their farms; but certainly these are 
the methods followed by our most successful farmers, 
and these are they who live on the fat of the land." 

"Are they farmers or are they manufacturers?" 
asked Percy. "It seems to me that, in large mea- 
sure, their business Is to manufacture a finished 
product from the raw materials produced upon other 
farms, either in the Immediate neighborhood or in 
the newer regions of the West. As you know, much 



32 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

of our surplus produce from the farms of the corn 
belt IS shipped into the eastern and southern states, 
there to be used as food for man and beast, not only 
in the cities, but also to a considerable extent in the 
country. Instead of living on the fat of the land, 
such manufacturers live in the country at the expense 
of special city customers who may have fat jobs and 
are able to pay fancy prices for country produce 
made by the impoverishment of many farms. In 
most cases, if such a 'successful farmer' were com- 
pelled to pay average prices for what he buys and 
allowed to receive only average prices for what he 
sells, his fat would have plenty of lean streaks." 



CHAPTER VI 

The Musicale 

DINNER was served at the family table, 
with Mr. West at the head and his 
mother at the foot. 
"The eye Is the window of the 
soul," thought Percy, as he met the 
glance of Adelaide sitting opposite. 
Certain he was that he had never before looked into 
such alluring eyes. 

Adelaide was neither a girl nor a woman and 
yet at times she was both. With the other children 
she was a child that still loved to romp and play 
with the rest, free as a bird. Her mother, a sweet- 
faced woman, some years her husband's junior, 
made sisters of all her daughters, the more naturally 
perhaps, because the grandmother was still so active 
and so Interested in all phases of homemaking that 
she seemed mother to them all. Adelaide's two 
older sisters were married and her brother Charles, 
also older than herself, by three years, was a senior 
in college. Adelaide had just finished her course In 
the Academy where the long service of a maiden 
aunt as teacher had secured certain appreciated 
privileges, without which it is doubtful If both 
Charles and Adelaide could have been sent away to 
school at the same time. A boy of fourteen and the 
eight-year-old baby brother with two sisters between 
comprised the younger members of the family. 

Miss Bowman, the teacher of the district school, 
also occupied a place at the table. The evening 
meal was disposed of without delay, for there was 
something of greater Importance to follow. A mus- 

33 



34 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

icale in the near-by country church had been in prep- 
aration and Percy heartily accepted an invitation to 
accompany the family to the evening's entertain- 
ment. Or rather he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. 
West and the grandmother, for all the children had 
walked the distance before the carriage arrived. 

Without having specialized in music, nevertheless 
Percy had improved the frequent opportunities he 
had had, especially while at the university, and he 
had learned to appreciate quality in the musical 
world. Consequently he was not a little surprised 
and greatly pleased to sit and listen to a class of 
music that he had never before heard rendered in 
country places; but, as he listened for Adelaide's 
singing in chorus, duet, and solo, he found himself 
wondering whether the eye or the voice more clearly 
revealed the soul. 

"It seemed like the old times," said the grand- 
mother, with something like a sigh, as she took her 
place in the carriage. "If our land was only like 
it used to be I but it's become so mighty poor our 
children can't have many advantages these days. 
The Harcourt's and Staunton's whom you met are 
descendants of ancestors once well known in this 
state." 

"It seems to me that the land need not have 
grown poor," said Percy. "If the land was once 
productive, its fertility ought to be maintained by 
the return of the essential materials removed in 
crops or destroyed by cultivation. Surely land need 
not become poor; but of course I know too little 
about this land to suggest at the present time what 
method could best be adopted for its improvement." 

"We can tell you what the best method is," she 
quickly replied. "Just put on plenty of ordinary 
farm fertilizer, but, laws, we don't have enough to 
cover fifty acres a year.'* ^ 



THE MUSICALE 35 

For a time each seemed lost In thought, or lis- 
tening to the husband and wife who sat In the front 
seat quietly talking of the evening's performances. 
Percy recognized some of the names they mentioned 
as belonging to persons to whom he had been pre- 
sented at the church. It gradually dawned upon 
him that he had spent the evening with the aris- 
tocracy of the Blue Mound neighborhood. Cul- 
ture, refinement, and poverty were the chief char- 
acteristics of the people who had been assembled. 

*'It need not have been," he repeated to himself; 
^'surely. It need not have been," and then he won- 
dered If these were not much sadder words than the 
oft repeated "It might have been." 

"May I ask where your people came from, Mrs. 
West?" he questioned. 

"Where we came from?" she repeated, "I don't 
quite understand." 

"Excuse me," said Percy, "but In the West It Is 
so common to ask people where they are from. You 
know the West Is settled with people from all sec- 
tions of the East, and many from Europe and from 
Canada, and I thought your ancestors may have 
moved here from some other state, as from Pennsyl- 
vania for example, where my mother's people once 
lived." 

"Let me advise you, young man," said the grand- 
mother briskly, and In a tone that reminded Percy 
of the twinkle he had at times noticed In her eyes 
when she seemed young again— "Let me advise you 
never to ask a Virginian If he was born In Pennsyl- 
vania. That's more than most Virginians can stand. 
Once a Virginian, always a Virginian,— both now, 
hereafter, and hitherto. It's mighty hard to find a 
Virginian who came from anywhere except from the 
royal blood of England; although somr may con- 
descend to acknGwledge kinship to the Scottish roy- 



3^ THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

alty." 

The grandmother's voice was raised to a pitch 
which commanded the attention of the other mem- 
bers in the carriage and a hearty laugh followed her 
jovial wit, to the full relief of Percy's temporary 
embarrassment. 

"Well," she continued, "to answer your question: 
my husband and my children are direct descendants 
of Colonel Charles West, a brother of Lord Dela- 
ware, who was Sir Thomas West, whose ancestry 
goes back to Henry the Second, of England, and to 
David the First, of Scotland; and my granddaughter 
is the great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry. So 
now you know where we come from," and she 
laughed again like a girl. "Yes," she added, "we 
have a family tree six feet from branch to branch, 
but it is stored in a back room where I am sure it 
is covered with cobwebs, for we have no time to live 
with the past when the summer boarders are here." 

As the carriage stopped at the side gate, the chil- 
dren's voices could be heard in the rear; for Mr. 
West had been living over again his younger days 
with his sweet-faced wife, and the farm team had 
taken its own time. 



CHAPTER VII 
A Bit of History 

NOW, I shall be at home to-day and glad 
to assist you in any way possible," an- 
nounced Mr. West at the breakfast 
table. 

''That is very kind of you," Percy 
replied. "I want especially to learn 
some of the things you know about the soils of West- 
over. Can you show me the best land and the poor- 
est land on the estate?" 

'T think I can," said Mr. West. "We have some 
land that has not grown a crop In fifty years, and we 
have other land that still produces a very fair crop if 
properly rotated." 

''And what rotation do you practice?" 
"Well, the system we have finally settled Into and 
have followed for many years is to plow up the run- 
out pasture land and plant to corn. The second year 
we usually raise a crop of wheat or oats and seed 
down to clover and timothy. We then try to cut hay 
from the land for two years, and afterward we use 
the field for pasture for six or eight years, or until 
finally it produces only weeds and foul grass. Then 
we cover it with farm manure, so far as we can, and 
again plow the land for corn. Wheat and cattle are 
the principal products sold from the farm." 

"In this way," said Percy, "you grow one crop of 
corn on the same field about once in ten or twelve 
years." 

"Yes, about that, and also one, or sometimes two, 
crops of small grain. We usually have about seven- 
ty-five acres of corn, nearly a hundred acres of small 

37 



38 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

grain, and we cut hay from somewhat more than a 
hundred acres, thus leaving perhaps five hundred acres 
of pasture land, besides about two hundred acres of 
timber land which has not been cultivated for many 
years." 

''Was the timber land that we see about here form- 
erly cultivated?" asked Percy. 

"Oh, yes, nearly all of it was under cultivation 
when I was a boy, although some had been allowed 
to go back to timber even before I was born. On 
our own farm we have some timber land that, so far 
as I have been able to learn, was never under culti- 
vation; and the character of the trees is different on 
that land. There you will find original pine, but on 
the worn-out land the "old-field" pine are found. 
They are practically worthless, while the original 
pine makes very valuable lumber. 

"With our system of rotation we keep about all of 
our farm under control; but the smaller farms were 
necessarily cropped more continuously to support the 
family, and they became so unproductive that many 
of them have been completely abandoned for agricul- 
tural purposes; and even some of the large planta- 
tions were poorly managed, one part having been 
cropped continuously until too poor to pay for crop- 
ping, while the remainder was allowed to grow up in 
scrub brush and "old-field" pine; and, of course, the 
expense of clearing such land is about as much as the 
net value of the crops that could be grown until it 
again becomes too poor for cropping." 

"Then the recleared lands are not as productive as 
when they were first cleared from the virgin for- 
est?" 

"Oh, by no means. In the virgin state these lands 
grew bountiful crops almost continuously for a hun- 
dred years or more. Virginia was famed at home 
and abroad for her virgin fertility. Great crops of 



A BIT OF HISTORY 39 

corn, wheat, and tobacco were grown. Tobacco was 
a valuable export crop, and there were many Vir- 
ginians whose mothers came to America with passage 
paid for in tobacco. History records, you may re- 
member, that it was the custom for a time to permit 
a young man to pay into a general store house a hun- 
dred pounds of tobacco,' — and this was later increased 
to one hundred fifty pounds, — to be used in payment 
of passage for young women who were thus enabled 
to come to America; and there was a very distinct 
understanding that only those who had come forth 
with the tobacco were eligible as suitors for the hand 
of any 'imported' maiden. As a matter of fact some 
such arrangement as this was almost a necessity," 
said Mr. West, as he noted Adelaide's almost incred- 
ulous look. "Among the first settlers in Virginia, 
young men greatly predominated; and in the main 
the people in the home country were themselves in 
poverty. Under the hereditary laws of England the 
father's estate and title became the possession of his 
eldest son; and in large measure the other children 
of the family were thrown absolutely upon their own 
resources, so that many, even with royal blood in their 
veins, were very glad to embrace any opportunity of- 
ferd to seek a new home in this land of virgin rich- 
ness. 

"Of course," he continued, smilingly and in direct 
answer to Adelaide's inquiring look, "those young 
women were in no sense bound to accept the attention 
or the offer of any man; but naturally most of them 
did become the wives of those who were able to offer 
them a husband's love and a home with more of life's 
comforts perhaps than they had ever known before. 
They were at perfect liberty, however, to remain in 
the enjoyment of single blessedness if they chose, and 
I doubt not," he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, 
"that some of them had no other choice." 



CHAPTER VIII 
Westover 

WITH an auger In his hand, by means 
of which a hole could be quickly 
bored into the soil to a depth of three 
or four feet, Percy joined Mr. West 
for the tramp over the plantation. 
In general the estate called West- 
over consists of undulating upland. A small stream 
crosses one corner of the farm bordered by some 
twenty acres of bottom land which is subject to fre- 
quent overflow, and used only for permanent pasture. 
Several draws or small valleys are tributary to the 
stream valley, thus furnishing excellent surface 
drainage for the entire farm. In some places the 
sides of these valleys are quite sloping and subject 
to moderate erosion when not protected by vegeta- 
tion. Above and between these slopes the upland 
is nearly level. As they came upon one of these 
level areas, grown up with small forest trees, Mr. 
West stopped and said: 

"Now, right here is probably as poor a piece of 
land as there is on the farm. This land will posi- 
tively not grow a crop worth harvesting unless it is 
well fertilized." 

"If we were in the Illinois corn belt,'* replied 
Percy, "I should expect to find the land in this posi- 
tion to be the most productive on the farm. Our 
level uplands are now valued at from one hundred 
fifty to two hundred dollars an acre. A farm of one 
hundred eighty acres, five miles from town, sold 
for two hundred and fourteen dollars an acre a few 
days before I started east." 

40 



WESTOVER 41 

'Well," said Mr. West, "this may have been 
good land once, but if so it was before my time. Of 
course most of our uplands here have been cropped 
for upwards of two hundred years; and about all 
that has ever been done to keep up the fertility of 
the soil has been to rotate the crops. To be sure, 
the farm manure has always been used as far as it 
would go, but the supply is really very small com- 
pared to the need for it." 

"Do you think that the proper rotation of crops 
would maintain the fertility of the soil?" asked 
Percy. 

"No, I have tried too many rotations to think 
that, but I suppose it is a help in that direction, don't 
you?" 

"I would say that crop rotation may help to main- 
tain the supply of some important constituents of a 
fertile soil, but it will certainly hasten the depletion 
of some other equally essential constituents." 

"Well," that's a new idea to me. I may not quite 
grasp your meaning; but first tell me about these 
tests you are making." 

When they stopped on the area of poor land as 
designated by Mr. West, Percy had turned his auger 
into the earth and drawn out a sample of moist soil, 
which he molded into the form of a ball. He broke 
this in two, inserted a piece of blue paper, and 
pressed it firmly together. He then laid the ball of 
soil aside, secured another sample with the auger, 
and formed it into a cake with a hollow in the upper 
surface. He took from his pocket a slender box 
or tube of light wood, removed the screw cap, and 
drew out a glass-stoppered bottle. 

"This bottle contains hydrochloric acid," said 
Percy. "It is often incorrectly called 'muriatic acid'. 
It consists of two elements, hydrogen and chlorin, 
from which its name is derived. But you arc per- 



42 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

haps already familiar with the chemical elements/' 

"Well, I heard lectures at William and Mary for 
four years, and they Included some chemistry as It 
was then taught; but they certainly did not Include 
the application of chemistry to agriculture, and I am 
greatly Interested to know the meaning of these 
tests you are making here on our own farm under 
my own eyes. You may take It for granted that I 
know absolutely nothing of such use of chemistry as 
you are evidently turning to some practical value.'' 

"Any other farmer can make these tests as well 
as I can," said Percy. "This bottle of acid cost me 
fifteen cents and It can be duplicated for the same 
price at almost any drug store. The acid Is very 
concentrated, in fact about as strong as can easily 
be produced, but It need not be especially pure. Some 
care should be taken not to get It on the clothing 
or on the fingers, although it Is not at all dangerous 
to handle, but It tends to burn the fingers unless soon 
removed, either by washing with water or by rub- 
bing It off with the moist soil." 

"I use this acid to test the soil for the presence 
or absence of limestone. Ordinary limestone con- 
sists of calcium carbonate. Here, again the chemi- 
cal name alone Is sufficient to indicate the elements 
that compose this compound. It Is only necessary 
to keep In mind the fact that the ending -ate on the 
common chemical names signifies the presence of 
oxygen. Thus calcium carbon^/^ is composed of 
the three primary elements, calcium, carbon, and 
oxygen. 

"Of course the chemical element Is the simplest 
form of matter. An element Is a primary substance 
which cannot be divided into two or more sub- 
stances. All known matter consists of about eighty 
of these primary elem.ents; and, as a matter of 
fact, most of these are of rare occurrence— many of 



WESTOVER 43 

them much more rare than the element gold. 

"About ninty-eight per cent, of the soil consists of 
eight elements united In various compounds or com- 
binations; and only ten elements are essential for the 
growth and full development of corn or other 
plants. If any one of these ten elements Is lacking, 
it Is Impossible to produce a kernel of corn, a grain 
of wheat, or a leaf of clover; and In the main the 
supply Is under the farmer's own control. But we 
can discuss this matter more fully later. Let us see 
what we have here." 

Percy poured a few drops of the hydrochloric 
acid Into the hollow of the cake of soil. 

"What should It do?" asked Mr. West. 

"If the soil contains any limestone, the acid should 
produce foaming, or effervescence," replied Percy; 
"but It is very evident that this soil contains no lime- 
stone. You see the hydrochloric acid has power to 
decompose calcium carbonate with the formation of 
carbonic acid and calcium chlorld, a kind of salt 
that Is used to make a brine that won't freeze In the 
artificial ice plants. The carbonic acid. If produced, 
at once decomposes into water and carbon dioxid. 
Now, the liberated carbon dioxid Is a gas and the 
rapid generation or evolution of this gas constitutes 
the bubbling or foaming we are looking for; but 
since there Is no appearance of foaming we know 
that this soil contains no limestone." 

"Then you have already found that those three ele- 
ments, — calcium, carbon, and oxygen, you called 
them, I think— you find that those elements are all 
lacking In this soil." 

"No, this test does not prove that," said Percy. 
"It only proves that they are not present as limestone. 
Calcium may be present in other compounds, espe- 
cially in silicates, which are the most abundant com- 
pounds in the soil and in the earth's crust; and, as 



44 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

Indicated by the ending -ate, oxygen is contained In 
calcium silicate as well as in calcium carbonate." 

"I see; the subject Is much more complicated than 
I thought." 

"Somewhat, perhaps," Percy replied; "but yet It Is 
quite simple and very easily understood. If we only 
keep In mind a few well established facts. Certainly 
the essential science of soil fertility Is much less com- 
plicated than many of the political questions of the 
day, such as the gold standard or free-silver basis, 
the tariff issues, and reciprocity advantages, regarding 
which most farmers are fairly well Informed, — at 
least to such an extent that they can argue these ques- 
tions for hours." 

"I think you are quite right in that," said Mr. 
West. "Of course. It Is Important that every citizen 
entitled to the privilege of voting in a democracy like 
ours should be able to exercise his franchise intelli- 
gently; but the citizen who Is responsible for the man- 
agement of farm lands ought surely to be at least as 
well Informed concerning the principles which under- 
lie the maintenance of soil fertility; provided, of 
course, that such knowledge is within his reach; and 
from what you say I am beginning to believe that such 
is the case. At any rate this simple test seems to show 
conclusively that this soil contains no limestone, and it 
is common knowledge that limestone soils are good 
soils." 

Percy took up the ball of soil containing the slip of 
blue paper, broke it In two again, and It was seen that 
the paper had changed in color from blue to red. 

"There's a change, for certain," said Mr. West, 
"that has some meaning to you I suppose." 

"This is litmus paper," said Percy. "It is pre- 
pared by moistening specially prepared paper with a 
solution of a coloring matter called litmus, and the pa- 
per is then dried. This coloring matter has the prop- 



WESTOVER 45 

crty of turning blue In the presence of alkali and 
red in the presence of acid. The blue paper is prepared 
with a trace of alkali, and the red paper with a trace 
of acid. If more than a trace were present the lit- 
mus paper would not be sufficiently sensitive for the 
test. 

"This little bottle containing two dozen slips of 
paper cost me five cents, and it can be obtained at 
most drug stores. 

"Alkali and acid are exactly opposite terms, like 
hot and cold. The one neutralizes the other. This 
test with litmus paper is a test for soil acidity, and 
the fact that the moisture of the soil has turned the 
litmus from blue to red shows that this soil is acid, 
or sour. The soil moisture contained enough acid 
to neutralize the trace of alkali contained in the blue 
paper and to change the paper to a distinctly light red 
color; and the fact that the paper remains red even 
after drying, shows that the soil contains fixed acids 
or acid salts, and not merely carbonic acid, which 
if present would completely volatilize as the paper 
dries. 

"Now, these two tests are in harmony. The one 
shows the absence of limestone, and the other shows 
the presence of acidity, and consequently the need of 
limestone to correct or neutralize the acidity, for lime- 
stone itself is an alkali." 

"But limestone soils are not alkali soils, are they?" 
asked Mr. West. 

"Not in the sense of containing injurious alkali, like 
sodium carbonate, the compound which is found in 
the 'black alkali' lands of the arid regions of the far 
West; but chemically considered limestone is truly an 
alkali; and, as such, it has power to neutralize this 
soil acidity." 

"Is the acidity harmful to the crops?" 

"It is not particularly harmful to the common crops 



46 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

of the grass family, such as wheat, corn, oats, and 
timothy; but some of the most valuable crops for 
soil improvement will not thrive on acid soils. This 
is especially true of clover and alfalfa." 

"That is certainly correct for clover so far as this 
kind of soil is concerned," said Mr. West. "Clover 
never amounts to much on this kind of land, except 
where heavily fertilized. When fertilized it usually 
grows well. Does the farm fertilizer neutralize the 
acid?" 

"Only to a small extent. It is true that farm 
manures contain very appreciable amounts of lime and 
some other alkaline, or basic, substances, but in addi- 
tion to this, and perhaps of greater importance, is the 
fact that such fertilizer has power to feed the clover 
crop as well as other crops. In other words it fur- 
nishes the essential materials of which these crops are 
made. In addition to this the decaying organic mat- 
ter has power to liberate some plant food from the 
soil which would not otherwise be made available, 
although to that extent the farm manure serves as a 
soil stimulant, this action tending not toward soil en- 
richment but toward the further depletion of the store 
of fertility still remaining in the soil. 

"This seems a complicated problem," said Mr. 
West, "but may I now show you some of our more 
productive land?" 

"As soon as I collect a sample of this," replied 
Percy, and to Mr. West's surprise he proceeded to 
bore about twenty holes in the space of two or three 
acres. The borings were taken to a depth of about 
seven inches, and after being thoroughly mixed to- 
gether an average sample of the lot was placed in a 
small bag bearing a number which Percy recorded 
in his note book together with a description of the 
land. 

"I wish to have an analysis made of this sample," 



WESTOVER 41 

remarked Percy, as they resumed their walk. 

"But I thought you had analyzed this soil," was 
the reply. 

"Oh, I only tested for limestone and acidity,"^ ex- 
plained Percy. "I wish to have exact determinations 
made of the nitrogen and phosphorus, and perhaps of 
the potassium, magnesium, and calcium. All of these 
are absolutely essential for the growth of every agri- 
cultural plant; and any one of them may be deficient 
in the soil, although the last three are not so likely 
to be as the other two." 

"How long will it take to make this analysis?" was 
asked. 

"About a week or ten days. Perhaps I shall col- 
lect two or three other samples and send them all to- 
gether to an analytical chemist. It is the only way 
to secure positive knowledge in advance as to what 
these soils contain. In other words, by this means 
we can take an absolute invoice of the stock of fer- 
tility in the soil, just as truly as the merchant can take 
an invoice of the stock of goods carried on his 
shelves." 

"So far as we are concerned, this would not be an 
invoice in advance," remarked Mr. West, with a 
shade of sadness in his voice. "If we knew the con- 
tents of the crops that have been sold from this farm 
during the two centuries past, we would have a fairly 
good invoice, I fear, of what the virgin soil contained; 
but can you compare the invoice of the soil with that 
of the merchant's goods?" 

"Quite fairly so," Percy replied. "The plant food 
content of the plowed soil of an acre of normal land 
means nearly, if not quite, as much in the making of 
definite plans for a system of permanent agriculture, 
as the merchant's invoice means in the future plans of 
his business. 

"It should not be assumed that the analysis of the 



4§ THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

soil will give information the application of which 
will always assure an abundant crop the following 
season. In comparison, it may also be said, however, 
that the merchant's invoice of January the first may 
have no relation to the sales from his store on Jan- 
uary the second. Now, the year with the farmer is 
as a day with the merchant. The farmer harvests his 
crop but once a year; while the merchant plants and 
harvests every day, or at least every week. But I 
would say that the invoice of the soil is worth as much 
to the farmer for the next year as the merchant's in- 
voice is to him for the next month. 

It should be remembered, however, that both must 
look forward, and plans must be made by the mer- 
chant for several months, and by the farmer for sev- 
eral years. Your twelve-year rotation is a very good 
example of the kind of future planning the success- 
ful farmer must do. On the other hand, some of 
your neighbors, who have not practiced some such 
system of rotation now have 'old-field' pine on land 
long since abandoned, and soil too poor to cultivate 
on land long cropped continuously." 

"This is a kind soil," remarked Mr. West, as he 
paused on a gently undulating part of the field. 

"That is a new use of the word to me," said Per- 
cy. "Just what do you mean by a 'kind' soil?" 

"Well, if we apply manure here it will show in the 
crops for many years. It is easy to build this soil up 
with manure; but, of course, we have too little to 
treat it right." 

"The soil is almost neutral," said Percy, testing 
with litmus and acid. "Does clover grow on this 
soil?" 

"Very little, except where we put manure." 

Another composite sample of the soil was col- 
lected, and they walked on. 

"Now, here," said Mr. West, "is about the most 



WESTOVER 49 

productive upland on the farm." 

''Is that possible?" asked Percy, the question be- 
ing directed more to himself than to his host. 

"That Is according to my observation for about 
fifty years," he replied. "Where we spread the farm 
fertilizer over this old pasture land and plow it 
under for corn, we often harvest a crop of eight 
barrels to the acre, while the average of the field 
will not be more than five barrels.— A barrel of 
corn with us is five bushels." 

They had stopped on one of the steepest slopes in 
the field. 

"These hillsides would be considered the poorest 
land on the farm if we were in the corn belt," said 
Percy, "but I think I understand the difference. Your 
level uplands when once depleted remain depleted, 
because the soil that was plowed two hundred years 
ago is the same soil that is plowed to-day; but these 
slopes lose surface soil by erosion at least as rapidly 
as the mineral plant food is removed by cropping; 
and to that extent they afford the conditions for a 
permanent system of agriculture of low grade, 
unless, of course, the erosion Is more rapid than the 
disintegration of the underlying bed rock, which 
I note is showing In some outcrops In the gullies. 

"I want some samples here," he continued, and 
at once proceeded to collect a composite sample of 
the surface soil and another of the sub-soil. 

"In the main this soil is slightly acid," said Percy, 
after several tests with the hydrochloric acid and the 
litmus paper; "although occasionally there are 
traces of limestone present. The mass of soil seems 
to be faintly acid, but here and there are little pieces 
of limestone which still produce some localized 
benefit, and probably prevent the development of 
more marked acidity throughout the soil mass." 

"If I can get to an express office this afternoon," 



50 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

he continued, "I shall be glad to forward these four 
composite samples to an analyst." 

"If you wouldn't mind riding to Montplain with 
Adelaide when she goes for her music lesson this 
afternoon, It would be very convenient," said Mr. 
West. 

*'WIth your daughter's permission that would 
suit me very well," he replied. "I shall be glad to 
spend one or two days more In this vicinity, and 
then I wish to visit other sections for a week or two, 
after which I would be glad to stop here again on 
my return trip and probably I shall have the report 
of the chemist concerning these samples." 



CHAPTER IX 

The Black Peril 

AS Percy stepped out of the house In the 
early afternoon upon the announce- 
ment from Wilkes that "De ca'age is 
ready," he noted that the "ca'age" was 
the two-seated family carriage and 
that Adelaide had already taken her 
place In the front seat, as driver, with her music 
roll and another bundle tucked In by her side. Her 
glance at Percy and at the rear seat was also suf- 
ficient to Indicate his place. 

"This does not seem right to me. Miss West," 
said Percy. "Unless you prefer to drive I shall be 
very glad to do so and let you occupy this more 
comfortable seat." 

"No thank you," she replied. In a tone that left 
no room for argument. "I often drive our guests 
to and from the station, and I much prefer this 
seat." 

The rear seat was roomy and low, so that Percy 
could scarcely see the road ahead even by sitting on 
the opposite side from the driver. 

Aside from an occasional commonplace remark 
both the driver and the passenger were allowed to 
use the time for meditation. 

While Adelaide was already an experienced 
horsewoman, she was rarely permitted to drive the 
colts to the village, although she enjoyed riding the 
more spirited horses, or driving with her brother 
in the "buck board." 

A mile from the village the road wound through 
a wooded valley, and then climbed the opposite 

51 



52 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

slope, passing the railway station a quarter of a 
mile from town and the "depot hotel" near by. 
Here Percy left the carriage with the bags of soil, 
It being arranged that he would be waiting ,at the 
hotel when Adelaide returned from the village. 

Adelaide's "hour" was from four to five, and be- 
ing the last pupil for the day, the teacher was not 
prompt to close. 

"I did not realize the days were becoming so 
short," said Miss Konster as she opened the door. 
"I'm sorry you have so far to drive." 

"Oh I don't mind," said Adelaide, "I know the 
way home well enough. You see I have the double 
carriage, for I brought a guest to the depot as usual, 
although he is to return with me, and is probably 
very tired of waiting at the 'depot hotel.' " 

It was nearly dark as Percy took his place in the 
rear seat, Adelaide having again declined to yield 
her position as driver, and now she had more pack- 
ages nearly filling the seat beside her. 

The team leisurely took the homeward way and 
nothing more was said except an occasional word 
of encouragement to the horses. They passed the 
lowest point in the valley and began to ascend the 
gentle slope, when the carriage suddenly stopped, 
and Adelaide uttered a muffled scream. "Come, 
Honey," said a masculine voice. 

As Percy half rose to his feet, he saw that a negro 
had grasped Adelaide in an effort to drag her from 
the carriage. A blow from Percy staggered the 
brute and he released his hold of Adelaide, but, as 
he saw Percy jump from the carriage on the oppo- 
site side, he paused. 

"De's a man heah. Knock him, Geo'ge," he yelled, 
as he turned to again grapple with Adelaide. 

"Coward," cried Adelaide, as she saw Percy jump 
from the carriage and dart up the road. Facing this 



THE BLACK PERIL 53 

black brute, she was standing alone now with one 
hand on the back of the seat. As the negro sprang 
at her the second time he uttered a scream like the cry 
of a beast and fell sprawling on his face. Almost at 
the same moment his companion was fairly lifted 
from his feet and came down headlong beside the 
carriage. 

"Look out for the horses," called Percy, as he 
drove the heels of his heavy shoes into the moaning 
mass on the ground. 

"Lie there, you brute," he cried, "don't you dare 
to move." 

"I have the lines," said Adelaide hoarsely, "but 
can't I do something more?" 

"No, they're both down," he answered. "Wait a 
minute." 

He found himself between the negroes lying with 
their faces to the ground. Instantly he grasped each 
by the wrist and with an inward twist he brought 
forth cries for mercy. It was a trick he had learned 
in college, that, by drawing the arm behind the back 
and twisting, a boy could control a strong man. 

"Can't I help you?" Adelaide called again, and 
Percy saw that she was out of the carriage and stand- 
ing near. 

"Will the horses stand?" he asked. 

"Oh, yes, they're quiet now." 

"Then take the tie rope and tie their feet together. 
Use the slip knot just as you do for the hitching 
post," he directed. "If they dare to move I can 
wrench their arms out in this position. Right there 
at the ankles. Tie them tight and as closely together 
as you can. Wrap it twice around if it's long 
enough." 

Adelaide tied one end of the rope around the 
ankle of one negro and wrapped the other end 
around the ankle of the other, drawing their feet to- 



54 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

gather and fastening the ends of the rope with a 
double hitch, which she knew well how to make. 

Percy gave the rope a kick to tighten it. 

"Now get onto your feet and I'll march you to 
town," he ordered, adding pressure to the twist upon 
their wrists and drawing them back upon their knees. 
Thus assisted, they struggled to their feet. 

"I am afraid you will have to drive home alone. 
Miss West," began Percy, when Adelaide interrupted 
with: 

"No, no, if you are going back to town, I will fol- 
low you," she said. "I can easily turn the team and I 
will keep close behind." 

Thus tied together, Percy almost ran his prisoners 
toward the village, still holding each firmly by the 
wrist. As they reached the "depot hotel," he called 
for assistance, and several men quickly appeared. 

Percy made a brief report of the attack as they 
moved on to the town house, where the villi ans were 
placed in shackles and left in charge of the marshall. 

"Will you drive, please, Mr. Johnston?" asked 
Adelaide as he stepped to the carriage; for Adelaide 
had followed almost to the door of the jail house. 

"Yes, please," he replied, taking the seat beside 
her. 

"I hope you will pardon my calling you a coward, 
I felt so desperate, and it seemed to me for the mo- 
ment that you were leaving me." Adelaide's voice 
still had an excited tremor to it. 

"I heard you say 'coward,' " said Percy, "but I 
didn't realize that you referred to me. I saw the two 
brutes almost at the same time, the one who attacked 
you and the other on the same side near the horses' 
heads. I struck the one as best I could from my po- 
sition, and as he yelled and the horses reared, I ran 
up the slope ahead of the team and came down at the 
other brute with a blow In the neck, but I was sur- 



THE BLACK PERIL 55 

prised to find them both sprawling on the ground; 
and under the street lights I saw that one of them had 
an eye frightfully jammed. I am sure I struck neither 
of them in the eye." 

Adelaide made no reply, but she knew now that 
the piercing, beastly cry from the negro reaching for 
her was brought forth because the heel of her shoe 
had entered the socket of the brute's eye. 

"You're mighty nigh too late for supper," said 
grandma West, as they stopped at the side gate. 
Adelaide hurried to her father who took her in his 
arms as he saw how she trembled. 

"My child!" he said. 

Yes, child she was as she relaxed from the tension 
of the last hour and related the experience of the even- 
ing. 

"I cannot express our gratitude to you, Sir," said 
Mr. West; "I am glad you landed the devils in 
jail." 

"I am only thankful I was there when it happened," 
replied Percy. "I am sure no man could have done 
less. I have promised to return to town in the morn- 
ing to serve as legal witness in the case. I hope your 
daughter need not be called upon for that purpose." 

"Probably that will not be necessary," Mr. West 
replied. 



CHAPTER X 

The Slave and the Freedman 

THE others had retired but Percy and his 
host continued their conversation far 
into the night. 
"There are almost as great varia- 
tions among the negroes as among 
white people,'' Mr. West was saying. 
"To a man like Wilkes who was born and raised 
here on the farm, I would entrust the protection of 
my wife and children as readily as to any white man. 
He has been educated, so to speak, to a sense of 
duty and honor; and negroes of his class have al- 
most never been known to violate a trust. Of course 
there are bad niggers, but as a rule such negroes 
have grown up under conditions that would develop 
the evil in any race of men. 

"During the Secession it was the most common 
thing for the men to go to war and leave their de- 
fenseless women and children wholly in the care of 
their slaves; and even though the federal soldiers 
were fighting to free the slaves and their masters 
to keep them in slavery, rarely did a negro fail to 
remain faithful to his trust. They hid from the 
northern soldiers the horses and mules, cotton and 
corn, clothing and provisions, and all sorts of valu- 
ables; and in most cases were ready to suffer them- 
selves before they would reveal the hidden prop- 
erty. To be sure there were masters who abused 
their slaves, and some of these were naturally ready 
to desert at the first opportunity; but in the main the 
slave owner was more kind to his human property 
than the considerate soldier was to his horse, and 

56 



THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN 57 

the negro as a race is appreciative of kindness." 

''I suppose the depreciation in soil fertility and 
crop yields dates largely from the freeing of the 
slaves, does it not?" asked Percy. 

"Well, that was one factor, but not the most po- 
tential factor. Much land in the south had been 
abandoned agriculturally long before the war, and 
much land in New York and New England has been 
abandoned since the war. The freeing of the ne- 
groes produced much less effect in the economic con- 
ditions of the south than many have supposed. The 
great injury to the South from the war was due to 
the war itself and not to the freeing of slaves. In 
the main it cost no more to hire the negro after the 
war than it cost to feed and clothe him before; and 
the humane slave owner had little difficulty in get- 
ting plenty of negro help after the war. Very com- 
monly his own slaves remained with him and were 
treated as servants, not particularly differently than 
they had been treated as slaves. Of course there 
were some brutal slave holders, just as there are 
brutal horse owners, and such men suffered very 
much from the loss of slave labor. 

"The southern people have no regrets for the 
freeing of the slaves. Probably it was the best 
thing that ever happened to us; and the South would 
have less regret for the war itself, except that our 
recovery from it was greatly delayed by the recon- 
struction policy which was followed after the war. 
The immediate enfranchisement of the negro, es- 
pecially in those sections where this resulted in plac- 
ing all the power of the local government in the 
hands of the negro, was a worse blow to the South 
than the war itself. 

"It is believed that this would not have been done 
if Lincoln had lived. Lincoln was always the Presi- 
dent of all the people of the United States, and his 



5S THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

death was a far greater loss to the South than to the 
North. To place the power to govern the intelligent 
white people of the South absolutely in the hands of 
their former ignorant slaves was undoubtedly the most 
abominable political blunder recorded in history; and 
even this was intensified by the unprincipled white- 
skinned vultures who came among us to fatten upon 
our dead or dying conditions. Those years of so-called 
reconstruction, constitute the blackest page in the his- 
tory of modern civilization." 

"I quite agree with you," said Percy, "and so far as 
I know them the soldiers of the northern armies also 
agree with you. Several of my own relatives fought 
to free the negro slave ; but none of them fought to 
enslave their white brothers of the South by putting 
them absolutely under negro government. And yet 
there is one possible justification for that abominable 
reconstruction policy. It may have averted a subse- 
quent war which might have lasted not for four years, 
but for forty years. Even if this be true, perhaps 
there is no credit in the policy for any man who helped 
to enforce it, but you will grant that there were two 
important results from those bitter years of recon- 
struction : 

"First, the negro learned with certainty at once and 
forever that he was a free man. 

"Second, he at once acquired a degree of inde- 
pendence effectually preventing the development of a 
situation throughout the South, in which the negro, 
though nominally free, would have remained virtually 
a slave, a situation which, if once established, might 
have required a subsequent war of many years for its 
complete eradication. Even under the conditions which 
have prevailed, there have been isolated instances of 
peonage in the southern states since the war; and if 
the education and gradual enfranchisement of the 
negro had been left wholly in the hands of their 



THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN 59 

former masters, from the Immediate close of the war, 
I can conceive of conditions under which slavery 
would essentially have been continued." 

"Such a possibility is, of course, conceivable," said 
Mr. West, "and we must all admit that there were 
some slave holders who would have taken advantage 
of any such opportunity; but had Lincoln lived the 
terms made would probably have been such that the 
South would have felt in honor bound to enforce 
them. Probably the enfranchisement would have 
been based upon some sort of qualification such as the 
southern states have very generally adopted in subse- 
quent years; but the idea of social equalit}^ of slave 
and master was so repulsive to the white people of the 
South that it could not be tolerated under any sort of 
government." 

"This question of social equality," remarked Per- 
cy, "has probably been the cause of more misunder- 
standing between the North and the South than all 
other questions relating to the negro problem. I 
have rarely, if ever, talked with a southern man who 
did not have it firmly fixed in his mind that the com- 
mon idea of the northern people is that the negro 
race should be made the social equal of the white race. 
This I have heard from southern lecturers; I have 
read it in southern newspapers; and I have found it 
in books written by southern authors; but, Mr. West, 
I have never yet heard that idea advanced by a man 
or woman of the North. 

"Of course there have been visionary theorists or 
'cranks' in all ages, and there must have been some 
basis for this almost universal erroneous opinion In the 
South that the people of the North advocate social 
equality or social intercourse between the white and 
colored races ; and yet nothing could be farther from 
the truth. In all my life in the North, I think I have 
never seen a colored person dining with a white man. 



6o THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

This does not prove that there are no such occur- 
rences, but It certainly shows that they are extremely 
rare. On the other hand, in traveling through the 
South I have seen a white woman bring her colored 
maid, or nurse, to the dining car and sit at the same 
table with herself and husband. Of course there is no 
suggestion of social equality or social intercourse in 
this, but there is a much closer relationship than is 
common or would be allowed in the North," 

'That may be true," said Mr. West, ''and there 
was in slave times a very intimate relationship between 
the negro nurses and the white children of the South. 
Some of our people are ready to take offence at the 
suggestion that we talk negro dialect, and perhaps we 
would all prefer to say that the negroes have learned 
to talk as we talk; but the truth is that the negroes 
were brought to America chiefly as adults; and, as is 
usually the case when adult people learn a new 
language, they modified ours because their own Afri- 
can language did not contain all of the sounds of the 
English tongue. Similarly we hear and recognize 
the other nationalities when they learn to speak Eng- 
lish. Thus we have the Irish brogue, the German 
brogue, and the French brogue, or dialect. 

"The negro children learned to speak the dialect 
as spoken by their own parents ; and as a very general 
rule the white children learned to talk as their negro 
nurses talked. So far as there is a southern dialect 
it is due to the modification of our language by the 
negro." 

"You have mentioned several things," said Per- 
cy, "that are much to the credit of the negro who has 
had a fair chance to be trained along right lines; and 
I think the modification of our language which his 
presence has brought about in the South is not without 
some credit. It is generally agreed that the most 
pleasing English we hear is that of the Southern ora- 



THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN 6i 

tor. 

'^Referring to social conditions, the most marked 
difference which I have noticed between the North 
and South, and really, it seems to me, the only differ- 
ence of importance, is that the South has separate 
schools for white and colored, whereas in the North 
the school is not looked upon as a social institution. 

"As a rule no more objection is raised to white and 
colored children sitting on separate seats in the same 
school room than to their sitting on separate seats in 
the same street car. The school is regarded as a place 
for work, where each has his own work to do, much 
the same as in the shop or factory where both white 
and colored are employed. The expense of the single 
school system is, of course, much less than where sep- 
arate schools are maintained; and perhaps an equally 
important point is that in the single system the same 
moral standards are held up by the teachers for both 
white and colored children." 

"That point is worthy of consideration," said 
Mr. West. "It is very certain that a class of ne- 
groes has grown up In these more recent years that 
was practically unknown In slave times when white 
men were more largely responsible for their moral 
training. The vile wretches who made the attack 
this evening probably never received any moral 
training. It Is conceivable that the moral Influence 
of the white children over the negroes in the same 
school might exert a lasting benefit, even aside from 
the Influence of the teacher; and the relationship of 
the school room could not be any real disadvantage 
to the white child. But this could only be brought 
about where white teachers were employed. Some 
such arrangement would doubtless have been made 
had the mind of Lincoln directed the general policy 
of reconstruction; but it Is doubtful now If the negro 
teacher will ever be wholly replaced, although time 



62 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

has wrought greater changes In political lines since 
the black years of the reconstruction." 

"Yes," said Percy, "and those changes which have 
been brought about in the South have the full sym- 
pathy and approval of the great majority of the 
Northern people. Indeed, it is extremely doubtful 
if the North will be able to completely banish such a 
source of vice and corruption as the open saloon 
until some limitation Is placed upon the franchise by 
an educational qualification. 



CHAPTER XI 

Judgment is Come 

THE goddess of sleep seemed to have de- 
serted Westover. Adelaide lay in her 
mother's arms, either awake and rest- 
less or in fitful sleep from which she 
frequently awoke with a muffled scream 
or a physical contortion. Once, as she 
nestled closer, her mother heard her murmur: "You 
must pardon me." 

Percy, from the southwest room, was sure he 
heard horses feet at the side gate. The murmur of 
low voices reached his ear, and then he recognized 
that horsemen were riding away. 

The house was astir at early dawn; and as soon 
as breakfast was over Mr. West had the colts 
hitched to the "buckboard" and he drove with 
Percy to Montplain. 

"I think your testimony will not be needed this 
morning," said Mr. West, "but it may be needed 
later, and it is well that you should report to the 
officers at any rate, since you promised to be there 
this morning." 

Percy pointed out the place where the attack had 
been made, and he looked for a stump of a small 
tree or for any other object upon which the negro 
could have fallen with such force as to mash his eye ; 
but he saw nothing. 

As soon as they reached the village, Mr. West 
drove directly to the town house; and there two 
black bodies were seen hanging from the limb of an 
old tree in the courthouse yard. 

Percy noted that his companion showed no sign 

63 



64 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

of surprise: and, after the first shock of his com- 
plete reaHzation of the work of the night, he looked 
calmly upon the scene. They had stopped almost 
under the tree. 

"Are these the brutes who made the attack and 
whom you captured and delivered to the officer?" 
asked Mr. West. 

"They are," he replied. 

"In your opinion have they received justice?" 

"Yes, Sir," Percy replied, "but I fear without 
due process of law." 

"Let me tell you. Sir, there is no law on the stat- 
utes under which justice could be meted out to these 
devils for the nameless crime which ends in death 
by murder or by suicide of the helpless victim, a 
crime which these wretches committed only in their 
black hearts— thanks to you. Sir." 

As he spoke, the town marshall approached fol- 
lowed by the negro pastor of the local church and 
a few of his followers. Silently they lowered the 
bodies to the ground, placed them upon improvised 
stretchers, and carried them to the potters field out- 
side the village, where rough coffins and graves were 
ready to receive them. 

As Mr. West and Percy returned to Westover 
they discussed the lands which in the main were ly- 
ing abandoned on either side of the road. 

"Here," said Mr. West, as he paused on the 
brow of a sloping hillside, "was as near to West- 
over as the Union army came. The position of the 
breastworks may still be seen. The Southern army 
lay across the valley yonder. These two trees are 
sprouts from an old stump of a tree that was shot 
away. About seventeen hundred confederate dead 
were buried in trenches in the valley, but they were 
later removed. The federal dead were carried 
away as the Union army retreated. We never 



JUDGMENT IS COME 65 

learned their number. For three days Westover 
was made the headquarters of the confederate officers, 
and my mother worked day and night to prepare 
food for them." 

They stopped at Westover for a few moments, 
Percy remaining in the "buckboard" while Mr. 
West reported to his family what they had seen in 
Montplain. 

"Our report," said Mr. West, "hideous and hor- 
rible as it is, will help to restore the child to calm 
and quiet. To speak frankly, Sir, occurrences of 
this sort, sometimes with the worst results, are suf- 
ficiently frequent in the South so that we constantly 
feel the added weight or burden whenever the sis- 
ter, wife, or daughter is left without adequate pro- 
tection." 

The remaining hours of the morning were devoted 
to a drive over the country surrounding Westover; 
and Mr. West consented to Adelaide's request that 
she be allowed to drive Percy to the station at Mont- 
plain, where he was to take the afternoon train for 
Richmond. She chose the "buckboard" but insisted 
upon driving. 

They talked of their school and college days, of 
the books they had read, of anything in fact except 
of the experiences of the past twenty-four hours. 
Even when they entered the valley no shadow crossed 
Adelaide's face; but as they neared the station her 
voice changed, and as Percy looked into her winsome, 
frankly upturned face, she said : 

"Have I truly been pardoned for my cruel words 
last evening? I am sure you were as manly and noble 
as any man could have been." 

"And I am sure you were the bravest little woman 
I have ever known," replied Percy, "and I admire 
you the more for calling me a coward when you 
thought I was running away; so there is nothing to 



66 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

pardon I am sure." . 

She gave him her hand as a child at partmg, but 
he thought as he looked into her eyes that he saw the 
soul of a woman. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Restoration 

PERCY carried with him a most interesting 
and attractive circular of information con- 
cerning the rapid restoration of the farm 
lands of the South. It also stated that 
further information could be secured from 
a certain real estate agent in Richmond, 
who was found to be still in his office when Percy ar- 
rived in the city late in the afternoon. 

The agent was delighted to receive a call from the 
Western man, and assured him that he would gladly 
show him several plantations not far from the city 
which could be purchased at very reasonable prices. 
Indeed he could have his choice of these old southern 
homesteads for the very low price of forty dollars 
an acre. A map of an adjoining county showed the 
exact location of several such farms, some of which 
were of great historical interest. At what time in the 
morning could he be ready to be shown one of these 
rare bargains? 

"What treatment do these lands require to restore 
their productiveness?" asked Percy. 

'^No treatment at all. Sir, except the adoption of 
your western methods of farming and your system of 
crop rotation. I tell you the results are marvelous 
when western farmers get hold of these famous old 
plantations. Just good farming and a change of crops, 
that's all they need." 

"Does clover grow well?" asked Percy. "We grow 
that a good deal in the West." 

"Oh, yes, clover will grow very well, indeed, but 
cowpeas is a much better crop than clover. Our best 

67 



68 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

farmers prefer the cowpea; and after a crop of cow- 
peas, you can raise large crops of any kind." 

"Of course you know of those who have been suc- 
cessful In restoring some of these old farms," Percy 
suggested. 

''Oh, yes, Sir, many of them, and they are making 
money hand over fist, and their lands are Increasing 
in value, and no doubt will continue to increase just 
as your western lands have done. Yes, Sir, the great- 
est opportunity for Investment In land Is right here 
and now, and these old plantations are being snapped 
up very rapidly." 

"I shall be glad to know of some of these success- 
ful farmers who are using the improved methods. 
Will you name one, just as an example, and tell me 
about what he has done to restore his land?" 

"Well," said the agent, "There's T. O. Thornton, 
for example. Mr. Thornton bought an old plantation 
of a thousand acres only six years ago at a cost of 
six dollars an acre. He has been growing cowpeas 
In rotation with other crops ; and, as I say, he is mak- 
ing money hand over fist. A few months ago he re- 
fused to consider fifty dollars an acre for his land, 
but still there are some of these old plantations left 
that can be bought for forty dollars, because the peo- 
ple don't really know what they are worth. How- 
ever, our lands are all much higher than they were a 
few years ago." 

"Where does Mr. Thornton live?" asked Percy. 

"Oh, he lives at Blalrville, nearly a hundred miles 
from Richmond. Yes, he lives on his farm near 
Blalrville. I tell you he's making good all right, but 
I don't know of any land for sale In that section." 

"I think I will go out to Blalrville to see Mr. 
Thornton's farm," said Percy. "Do you know when 
the trains run?" 

"Well, Tm sorry to say that the train service I§ 



THE RESTORATION 69 

very poor to Blalrvllle. There Is only one train a 
day that reaches BlairvUle In daylight, and that leaves 
Richmond very early In the morning." 

"That Is alright," said Percy, "It will probably 
get me there In time so that I shall be sure to find 
Mr. Thornton at home. I thank you very much, 
Sir. Perhaps I shall be able to see you again when 
I return from BlairvUle." 

"When you return from BlairvUle Is about the 
most uncertain thing in the world. As I said, the 
train service is mighty poor to Blairsville, and It's 
still poorer, you'll find, when you want to leave Blair- 
vUle. Why, a traveling man told me he had been on 
the road for fifteen years, and he swore he had 
spent seven of 'em at BlairvUle waiting for trains. 
Better take my advice and look over some of the fine 
old plantations right here in the next county, and 
then you can take all the rest of the month If you 
wish getting in and out of BlairvUle." 

About eight o'clock the following morning Percy 
might have been seen walking along the railroad 
which ran through Mr. Thornton's farm about two 
miles from BlairvUle. He saw a well beaten path 
which led from the railroad to a nearby cottage 
and a knock brought to the door a negro woman 
followed by several children. 

"Can you tell me where Mr. Thornton's farm 
Is?" he Inquired. 

"Yes, Suh,'' she replied. "This Is MIstah Tho'n- 
ton's place, right heah, Suh. Leastways, it was his 
place; but we done bought twenty acahs of it heah, 
wheah we live, 'cept taint all paid fo' yit. MIstah 
Tho'nton lives In the big house over theah 'bout half 
a mile." 

"May I ask what you have to pay for land here?" 

"Oh, we have to pay ten dollahs an acah, cause 
we can't pay cash. My ol' man he wo'ks on the rail- 



70 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

road section and we just pay Mistah Tho'nton foh 
dollahs every month. My chil'n wo'k in the ga'den 
and tend that acah patch o' co'n." 

"Do you fertihze the corn?" 

"Yes, Suh. We can't grow nothin' heah without 
fe'tilizah. We got two hundred pounds fo' three 
dollahs last spring and planted it with the co'n." 

As Percy turned in at Mr. Thornton's gate he 
saw a white man and two negroes working at the 
barn. "Pardon me, but is this Mr. Thornton?" 
asked Percy as he approached. 

"That is my name." 

"Well, my name is Johnston. I am especially in- 
terested in learning all I can about the farm lands 
in this section and the best methods of farming. I 
live in Illinois, and have thought some of selling our 
little farm out there and buying a larger one here 
in the East where the land is much cheaper than 
with us. A real estate agent in Richmond has told 
me something of the progress you are making in 
the improvement of your large farm. I hope you 
will not let me interfere with your work, Sir." 

"Oh this work is not much. I've had a little lum- 
ber sawed at a mill which is running just now over 
beyond my farm, and I am trying to put a shed up 
here over part of the barn yard so we can save 
more of the manure. I shall be very glad to give 
you any information I can either about my own 
farming or about the farm lands in this section." 

"You have about a thousand acres in your farm 
I was told." 

"Yes, we still have some over nine hundred acres 
in the place, but we are farming only about two 
hundred acres, including the meadow and pasture 
land. The other seven hundred acres are not 
fenced, and, as you will see, the land is mostly 
grown up to scrub trees." 



THE RESTORATION 71 

"Your corn appears to be a very good crop. 
About how many acres of corn do you have this 
year?" 

"I have only fourteen acres. That Is all I could 
cover with manure, and it is hardly worth trying 
to raise corn without manure." 

"Do you use any commercial fertilizer?" 

"Well, I've been using some bone meal. I've no 
use for the ordinary complete commercial fertilizer. 
It sometimes helps a little for one year; but it seems 
to leave the land poorer than ever. Bone meal lasts 
longer and doesn't seem to hurt the land. I see from 
the agricultural papers that some of the experiment 
stations report good results from the use of fine- 
ground raw rock phosphate; but they advise using 
it in connection with organic matter, such as man- 
ure or clover plowed under. I am planning to get 
some and mix it with the manure here under this 
shed. Do you use commercial fertilizers in Il- 
linois?" 

"Not to speak of, but some of our farmers are 
beginning to use the raw phosphate. Our experi- 
ment station has found that our most extensive soil 
types are not rich in phosphorus, and has repub- 
lished for our benefit the reports from the Mary- 
land and Ohio experiment stations showing that the 
fine-ground natural rock phosphate appears to be 
the most economical form to use and that it is likely 
to prove much more profitable in the long run, al- 
though it may not give very marked results the first 
year or two. May I ask what products you sell 
from your farm, Mr. Thornton?" 

"I sell cream. I have a special trade In Rich- 
mond, and I ship my cream direct to the city. I also 
sell a few hogs and some wheat. I usually put wheat 
after corn, and have fourteen acres of wheat seeded 
between the corn shocks over there. Sometimes I 



72 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

don't get the wheat seeded, and then I put the land 
in cowpeas. I usually raise about twenty-five acres 
of cowpeas, and the rest of the cleared land I use 
for meadow and pasture. I usually sow timothy 
after cowpeas, and I like to break up as much old 
pasture land for corn as I can put manure on." 

"I was told that you had been offered fifty dol- 
lars an acre for your farm, Mr. Thornton, but that 
you would not consider the offer." 

Mr. Thornton laughed heartily at this remark. 

"That must have come from the Richmond land 
agent," he said. "Someone else was telling me that 
story a short time ago. The fact is one of those 
real estate agents was out here last spring and he 
asked me if I would consider an offer of fifty dol- 
lars an acre for our land. I told him that I didn't 
think that I would as long as any one who wishes to 
buy can get all the land he wants in this section for 
five or ten dollars an acre. That's as near as I 
came to having an offer of fifty dollars an acre for 
this land. The land adjoining me on the south is 
for sale, and I am sure you could buy that farm of 
about seven hundred acres for four dollars an acre 
after they get the timber off. Some of the land has 
not been cropped for a hundred years, I guess; and 
there are a few trees on it that are big enough for 
light saw-stuff. A man has bought the timber that 
is worth cutting, and he is running a saw over there 
now; but he'll get out all that's good for anything in 
a few months." 

"May I ask how long you have been farming 
here, Mr. Thornton?" ^ 

"Twelve years on this farm," he replied. "You 
see this estate was left to my wife and her sister 
who still lives with us. We were married twelve 
years ago and I have been working ever since to 
make a living for us on this old worn-out farm. Of 



THE RESTORATION 73 

course I have made some little Improvements about 
the barns, but we've sold a little land too. The 
railroad company wanted about an acre down where 
that little stream crosses, for a water supply, and I 
got twelve hundred dollars for that." 

"Now, I've already taken too much of your 
time," said Percy. *'I thank you for your kindness 
in giving me so much Information. If there is no 
objection I shall be glad to take a walk about over 
your farm and the adjoining land, and perhaps I 
can see you again for a few moments when I re- 
turn." 

"Certainly," Mr. Thornton replied. "There is 
no objection whatsoever. We are going to Blalrvllle 
this morning, but we shall be back before noon and 
I shall be glad to see you then. I fear you have 
been given some misinformation by the real estate 
agents. Some of them, by the way, are Northern 
men who came down here and bought land and when 
they found they could not make a living on it, they 
sold It to other land hunters, and I suppose that they 
made so much in the deal that they stayed right 
here as real estate agents. They are great adver- 
tisers; but I reckon our Southern real estate men 
can just about keep even. The agent who was out 
here last spring told me he showed one Northern 
man a farm for $12 an acre and he was afraid to 
buy. Then he took him into another county and 
showed him a poorer farm for $45 and he bought 
that at once. 

"The road there runs out through the fields. Our 
land runs back to the other public road and beyond 
that Is the farm I told you of where the saw mill Is 
running. I've got some pretty good cowpeas you'll 
pass by. I haven't got them off the racks yet." 

Percy found the cowpea hay piled in large 
shocks over tripods made of short stout poles which 



74 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

served to keep the hay off the ground to some ex- 
tent, and this permitted the cowpeas to be cured 
in larger piles and with less danger of loss from 
molding. 

*T find that the soil on your farm and on the other 
farms in very generally acid," said Percy a few hours 
later when Mr. Thornton asked what he thought of 
the conditions of farming. "Have you used any 
lime for improving the soil?" 

"Yes, I tried it about ten years ago, and it helped 
some, but not enough to make It pay. I put ten bar- 
rels on about three acres. T thought It helped the 
corn and wheat a little, and it showed right to the 
line where I put cowpeas on the land, but I don't 
think it paid, and It's mighty disagreeable stuff to 
handle." 

"Do you remember how much it cost?" Percy 
asked. 

"Yes, Sir. The regular price was a dollar a bar- 
rel, but by taking ten barrels I got the ton for eight 
dollars; but I'd rather have eight dollars worth of 
bone meal." 

"I think the lime would be a great help to clover," 
said Percy. 

"Yes, that might be. They tell me that they used 
to grow lots of clover here; but it played out com- 
pletely, and nobody sows clover now, except occa- 
sionally on an old feed lot which Is rich enough to 
grow anything. It takes mighty good land to grow 
clover; but cowpeas are better for us. They do pret- 
ty well for this old land, only the seed costs too 
much, and they make a sight of work, and they're 
mighty hard to get cured. You see they aren't ready 
for hay till the hot weather is mostly past. If we 
could handle them in June and July, as we do tim- 
othy, we'd have no trouble ; but we don't get cowpeas 
planted till June, and September is a poor time for 



THE RESTORATION 75 

haying." 

"It seems to me that clover is a much more satis- 
factory crop," said Percy. "One can sow clover 
with oats in the spring, or on wheat land in the late 
winter, and there is no more trouble with it until it 
is ready for haying about fifteen months later, unless 
the land is weedy or the clover makes such a growth 
the first fall that we must clip it to prevent either the 
weeds or the clover from seeding. This means that 
when you are planting your ground for cowpeas the 
next year after wheat or oats, we are just ready to 
begin harvesting our clover hay; and besides the reg- 
ular hay crop we usually have some growth the fall 
before which is left on the land as a fertilizer, and 
then we get a second crop of clover which we save 
cither for hay or seed. Even after the seed crop is 
harvested there is usually some later fall growth, and 
some let the clover stand till it grows some more the 
next spring and then plow it under for corn." 

"I can see that clover would be much better than 
cowpeas if we could grow it; but, as I said, it's 
played out here. Our land simply won't grow it any 
more. Not having to plow for clover would save a 
great deal of the work we must do for our cowpeas." 

"Some of our farmers follow a three-year rota- 
tion and plow the ground only once in three years," 
said Percy. "They plow the ground for corn, disk 
it the next spring when oats and clover are seeded, 
and then leave the land in clover the next year. In 
that way they regularly harvest four crops, including 
the two clover crops, from only one plowing; and 
in exceptional seasons I have known an extra crop of 
clover hay to be harvested in the late fall on the land 
where the oats were grown." 

'"In regard to the lime question," Percy continued, 
"I wonder if you know of the work the Pennsylvania 
Experiment Station has been doing with the u»e of 



76 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ground limestone In comparison with burned lime." 
"No, I never heard of ground limestone being 
used. I supposed It had to be burned. I should think 
It would be very expensive to grind limestone. 

*'No, It costs much less to grind It than to burn 
it," Percy replied. "Mills are used for grinding 
rock In cement manufacture, and the rock phosphate 
and bone meal must all be ground before using them 
either for direct application or for the manufacture 
of acidulated fertilizers; and limestone Is not so hard 
to grind as some other rocks. Furthermore It does 
not need to be so very finely ground. If fine enough 
so that It will pass through a sieve with ten meshes 
to the Inch It does very well. That you see would 
be a hundred meshes to the square Inch; and, of 
course, a great deal of It will be much finer than that. 
In fact the ground limestone used In the Pennsylvania 
experiments was only fine enough so that about ninety 
per cent, of It would pass a sieve with ten meshes to 
the Inch, and yet the limestone gave decidedly bet- 
ter results than the burned lime, and It Is not nearly 
so disagreeable to handle. Besides this, the ground 
limestone Is much less expensive. It can be obtained 
at most points In Illinois for about a dollar and fifty 
cents a ton." 

"A dollar and fifty cents a ton I" exclaimed Mr. 
Thornton. "Well, that Is cheap, but how about the 
freight and the barrels and bags? Freight Is a big 
item with us." 

"The dollar and fifty cents Includes the freight," 
was the reply. 

"Includes the cost and the freight both?" 
"Yes, and the Illinois farmers have it shipped in 
bulk, so there is no expense for barrels or bags. Of 
course the supplies of both coal and limestone are 
very abundant, and with a well equipped plant the 
actual cost of grinding does not exceed twenty-five 



THE RESTORATION 77 

cents a ton. The original cost of the material ground 
and on board cars at the works varies from about 
sixty cents to one dollar a ton, and this leaves a very 
fair margin of profit. 

"The men who furnish the ground limestone 
realize that very large quantities of it are needed if 
the soils of Illinois are to be kept fertile, and they 
also realize that the ultimate prosperity of the coun- 
try depends upon agricultural prosperity. Their far- 
sightedness and patriotism combine to lead them to 
try to sell carloads of limestone instead of tons of 
burned lime. As a matter of fact five or ten dollars 
profit on a car of limestone, the use of which in large 
quantities is thus made possible in systems of positive 
soil improvement, is very much better for all con- 
cerned than a profit of half that much on a single ton 
of burned lime which is used as a soil stimulant in 
systems of soil exhaustion." 

"It is certainly true," said Mr. Thornton, "that all 
other great industries depend upon agriculture, di- 
rectly or indirectly. I have thought of it many times. 
It seems to me that fishing is about the only exception 
of importance." 

Mr. Thornton requested that Percy remain for 
lunch in order that they might return to the field to 
let him see the soil acidity tests made. 



CHAPTER XIII 
Why Percy Went to College 

" "W" AM interested to know where you learned 

■ these things about acid soils and lime and 

■ limestone," said Mr. Thornton. 

B "Mostly in the agricultural college," 

replied Percy, "but much of the informa- 
tion really comes from the investigations 
that are conducted by the experiment stations. For 
example, the best information the world affords 
concerning the comparative value of burned lime 
and ground limestone is furnished by the Pennsyl- 
vania Agricultural Experiment Station. Those ex- 
periments have been carried on continuously since 
1882, and the results of twenty years' careful investi- 
gations have recently been published. A four-year 
rotation of crops was practiced, including corn, oats, 
wheat, and hay, the hay being clover and timothy 
mixed. With every crop the limestone has given 
better results than the burned lime. In fact the 
burned lime seems to have produced injurious re- 
sults of late years, and the analysis of the soil shows 
that there has been large loss of humus and nitro- 
gen where the burned lime has been used, the actual 
loss being equivalent to the destruction of more than 
two tons of farm manure per acre per annum. 

"Well, we surely need this information," said 
Mr. Thornton. "I have always supposed that the 
teachers in the agricultural college knew little or 
nothing of practical farming." 

"I did not go to college to learn practical farm- 
ing, if we mean by that the common practice of ag- 
riculture," replied Percy. "I already knew what we 

78 



WHY PERCY WENT TO COLLEGE 79 

call practical farming; that is, how to do the ordin- 
ary farm work, including such operations as plow- 
ing, planting, cultivating, and harvesting; but it 
seems to me, Mr. Thornton, that this sort of prac- 
tical farming has resulted in practical ruin for most 
of these Eastern lands. The fact is there is a side 
to agriculture that I knew almost nothing about as 
a so-called practical farmer, and I am coming to 
believe that what we commonly call practical farm- 
ing is often the most impractical farming, — certain- 
ly this is true if it ultimately results in depleted and 
abandoned lands. The truly practical farmer is the 
man who knows not only how to do, but also what 
to do and why he does it. The Simplon railroad 
tunnel connecting Switzerland with Italy Is twelve 
miles long,— the longest in the world. It was dug 
from the two ends, but under the mountain, six miles 
from either end, the two holes came together ex- 
actly, within a limit of error of less than six inches, 
and made one continuous tunnel twelve miles long. 
Now, this was not all accomplished by the practical 
men who knew how to handle a spade in digging a 
ditch. The work was controlled by science, and it 
was known in advance what the results would be. I 
do not mean that it was known how hard the digging 
would be, nor how much trouble would be caused 
by caving or by water; but it was known that if the 
practical work was done, the final outcome would be 
successful. 

"I think it is even more important that we under- 
stand enough of the sciences which underlie the 
practice of agriculture so we may know in advance 
that when the practical farm work is done the soil 
will be richer and better rather than poorer and less 
productive because of our impractical farming. 

"As I said, I did not go to the agricultural col- 
lege to learn the practice or art of farming; I went 



§o THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

to learn the science of agriculture; but, as a matter 
of fact, I found the college professor knew about 
as much of practical agriculture as I did and a great 
deal of science that I did not know. I found that 
the Dean of the college, who is also Director of the 
Experiment Station, had been born and raised on 
the farm, had done all kinds of farm work, the 
same as other farm boys, had gone through an ag- 
ricultural college, and after his graduation had re- 
turned to the farm and remained there for ten 
years doing his own work with his own hands. He 
has had as much actual farm experience as you have 
had, Mr. Thornton, and ten years more than I have 
had. He was finally called from the farm to be- 
come an assistant in the college from which he was 
graduated, and in a few years he was advanced to 
head professor in agriculture. About ten years ago 
he was made dean and director of the agricultural 
college and experiment station in my own state; 
and I have been told that he will not recommend 
any one for a responsible position in an agricultural 
college unless he has had both farm experience and 
scientific training. He and most of his associates 
are owners of farms and would return to them again 
if they did not feel that they are of more service 
to agriculture as teachers and investigators." 

"I am very glad to know about this," said Mr. 
Thornton. "Certainly your opinion, based upon 
such knowledge as you have of your own college, is 
worth more than all the common talk I have ever 
heard from those who never saw an agricultural 
college. I wish you would tell me something more 
in regard to what crops are made of and about the 
methods of making land better even while we are 
taking crops from it every year." 



CHAPTER XIV 

A Lesson in Farm Science 

"r — I — ^HE subject is somewhat complicated," 
I Percy replied, "yet it involves no more 

I difficult problems than have been solved 

M in many other lines. The chief trouble 

is that we have done too little thinking 
about our own real problems. Even 
in the country schools we have learned something of 
banking and various other lines of business, some- 
thing of the history and politics of this and other 
countries, something of the great achievements in 
war, in discovery and exploration, in art, literature, 
and Invention; but we have not learned what oui* 
soils contain nor what our crops require. Not one 
farmer In a hundred knows what chemical elements 
are absolutely required for the production of our 
agricultural plants, and one may work hard on the 
farm from four o'clock in the morning till nine 
o'clock at night for forty years and still not learn 
what corn is made of. 

"All agricultural plants are composed of ten 
chemical elements, and the growth of any crop is ab- 
solutely dependent upon the supply of these plant 
food elements. If the supply of any one of these 
plant food elements is limited, the crop yield will 
also be limited. The grain and grass crops, such as 
corn, oats, wheat, and timothy, also the root crops 
and potatoes, secure two elements from the air, one 
from water, and seven from the soil. 

"The supply of some elements Is constantly re- 
newed by natural processes, and Iron, one of the ten, 
is contained in all normal soils in absolutely inex- 

8i 



§2 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

haustible amount; while other elements become de- 
ficient and the supply must be renewed by man, or 
crop yields decrease and farming becomes unprofit- 
able. 

"Matter is absolutely indestructible. It may change 
its form, but not a pound of material substance can 
be destroyed. Matter moves in cycles, and the key 
to the problem of successful permanent agriculture is 
the circulation of plant food. While some elements 
have a natural cycle which is amply sufficient to 
meet all requirements for these elements as plant 
food, other elements have no such cycle, and it is the 
chief business of the farmer to make these elements 
circulate. 

"Take carbon, for example. This element is well 
represented by hard coal. Soft coal and charcoal are 
chiefly carbon. The diamond is pure crystallized car- 
bon, and charcoal made from pure sugar is pure, un- 
crystallized carbon. This can easily be made by 
heating a lump of sugar on a red hot stove until only 
a black coal remains. Now these different solid ma- 
terials represent carbon in the elemental form or free 
state. But carbon may unite with other elements to 
form chemical compounds, and these may be solids, 
liquids, or gases. 

Thus carbon and sulfur are both solid elements, 
one black and the other yellow, as generally found. 
If these two elements are mixed together under or- 
dinary conditions no change occurs. The result is 
simply a mixture of carbon and sulfur. But, if this 
mixture is heated in a retort which excludes the air, 
the carbon and sulfur unite into a chemical com- 
pound called carbon disulfid. This compound is 
neither black, yellow, nor solid; but it is a colorless, 
limpid liquid; and yet it contains absolutely nothing 
except carbon and sulfur." 

"That seems strange," remarked Mr. Thornton. 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 83 

^Tes, but similar changes are going on about us 
all the time," replied Percy. "We put ten pounds 
of solid black coal in the stove and an hour later we 
find nothing there, except a few ounces of ashes 
which represent the impurities in the coal." 

"Well, the coal is burned up and destroyed, is it 
not?" 

"The carbon is burned and changed, but not des- 
troyed. In this case, the heat has caused the car- 
bon to unite with the element oxygen which exists in 
the air in the form of a gas, and a chemical com- 
pound is formed which we call carbon dioxid. This 
compound is a colorless gas. This element oxygen 
enters the vent of the stove and the compound car- 
bon dioxid passes off through the chimney. If there 
is any smoke, it is due to small particles of unburned 
carbon or other colored substances. 

"As a rule more or less sulfur is contained in 
coal, wood, and other organic matter, and this also 
is burned to sulfur dioxid and carried into the air, 
from which it is brought back to the soil in rain in 
ample amounts to supply all of the sulfur required 
by plants. 

"Everywhere over the earth the atmosphere con- 
tains some carbon dioxid and this compound fur- 
nishes all agricultural plants their necessary supply of 
both carbon and oxygen. In other words, these are 
the two elements that plants secure from the air. The 
gas, carbon dioxid, passes into the plant through the 
breathing pores on the under side of the leaves. 
These are microscopic openings but very numerous. 
A square inch of a corn leaf may have a hundred 
thousand breathing pores." 

"Now, as we go on, I am especially anxious to get 
at this question of supply and demand," said Mr. 
Thornton. "I think I understand about iron and 
sulfur, and also that these two elements, carbon 



§4 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

and oxygen, are both contained in the air in the 
compound called carbon dioxid, and that this must 
supply our crops with those two elements of plant 
food. I'd like to know about the supply. How 
much is there in the air and how much do the crops 
require?" 

''As you know," said Percy, "the atmospheric 
pressure is about fifteen pounds to the square inch." 

"Yes, I've heard that, I know." 

"Well, that means, of course, that there are fifteen 
pounds of air resting on ev^ery square inch of the 
earth's surface; in other words, that a column of air 
one inch square and as high as the air goes, perhaps 
fifty miles or more, weighs fifteen pounds." 

"Yes, that is very clear." 

"There is only one pound of carbon in ten thou- 
sand pounds of ordinary country air. Now, there 
are one hundred and sixty square rods in an acre, 
and since there are twelve inches in a foot and six- 
teen and one-half feet in a rod, it is easy to compute 
that there are nearly a hundred million pounds of 
air on an acre, and that the carbon in this amounts 
to only five tons. A three-ton crop of corn or hay 
contains one and one-fourth tons of the element 
carbon; so that the total amount of the carbon 
in the air over an acre of land is sufficient 
for only four such crops; while a single crop of 
corn yielding a hundred bushels to the acre, 
such as we often raise in Illinois on old 
feed-lots or other pieces of well treated 
land, would require half of the total supply 
of carbon contained in the air over an acre. How- 
ever, the largest crop of corn ever grown, of which 
there is an established authentic record, was not 
raised in Illinois, but in the stgite of South Carp- 
Una,, in the county of Marlborough, in the year 
1889, by Z. J. Drake; and, according to the authen- 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 85 

tic report of the official committee that measured 
the land and saw the crop harvested and weighed, 
and awarded Drake a prize of five hundred dol- 
lars given by the Orange Judd Publishing Com- 
pany,— according to this very creditable evidence, 
that acre of land yielded 239 bushels of thoroughly 
aid-dried corn; and such a crop, Mr. Thornton, 
would require as much carbon as the total amount 
contained in the air over an acre of land." 

"Well, that is astonishing! Then there must 
be some other source of supply besides the air." 

"There is no other direct source from which 
plants secure carbon; but of course the air is in 
constant motion. Only one-fourth of the earth's 
surface is land, and perhaps only one-fourth of this 
land is cropped, and the average crop is about one- 
fourth of three tons; so that the total present sup- 
ply of carbon in the air would be sufficient for about 
two-hundred and fifty years. But as a matter of 
fact the supply is permanently maintained by the 
carbon cycle. Thus the carbon of coal that is burned 
in the stove returns to the air in carbon dioxid; and 
all combustion of coal and wood, grass and weeds, 
and all other vegetable matter returns carbon to the 
atmosphere. All decay of organic matter, as in 
the fermentation of manure in the pile and the rot- 
ting of vegetable matter in the soil, is a form of 
slow combustion and carbon dioxid is the chief pro- 
duct of such decay. Sometimes an appreciable 
amount of heat is developed, as in the steaming pile 
of stable refuse lying in the barnyard, while the 
heat evolved in the soil is too quickly disseminated 
to be apparent. 

"In addition to all this, every animal exales car- 
bon dioxid. The body heat and the animal force 
or energy are supplied by the combustion of organic 
food within the body, and here, too, carbon dioxid 



86 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

is the chief product of combustion. 

"Thus, as a general average, the amount of car- 
bon removed from the atmosphere by growing 
plants is no greater than the amount returned to the 
air by these various forms of combustion or decay. 
In like manner the supply of combined oxygen is 
maintained, both carbon and oxygen being fur- 
nished to the plant in the carbon dioxid. 

"As a matter of fact, the air consists very largely 
of oxygen and nitrogen, both in the free state, but 
in this form these elements cannot be utilized in the 
growth of agricultural plants. The only apparent 
exception to this is in case of legume crops, such as 
clover, alfalfa, peas, beans, and vetch, which have 
power to utilize the free nitrogen by means of their 
symbiotic relationship with certain nitrogen-fixing 
bacteria which live, or may live, in tubercles on their 
roots. 

"Carbon and oxygen constitute about ninety per 
cent, of the dry matter of ordinary farm crops, and 
with the addition of hydrogen very important plant 
constituents are produced; such as starch, sugar, 
fiber, or cellulose, which constitute the carbohy- 
drate group. As the name indicates, this group con- 
tains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the last two 
being present in the same proportion as in water. 

"Water is composed of the two elements, hydro- 
gen and oxygen, both of which are gases in the free 
state. Water is taken into the plant through the 
roots and decomposed in the leaves in contact with 
the carbon dioxid under the influence of sunlight and 
the life principle. The oxygen from the water and 
part of that from the carbon dioxid is given off into 
the air through the breathing pores, while the car- 
bon, hydrogen, and part of the oxygen, unite to form 
the carbohydrates. These three elements constitute 
about ninety-five per cent, of our farm crops, and 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 87 

yet every one of the other seven plant food elements 
is just as essential to the growth and full develop- 
ment of the plant as are these three." 

''Then so long as we have air above and moisture 
below, our crops will not lack for carbon, oxygen, and 
hydrogen. Is that the summing up of the matter?" 

'Tes, Sir," Percy replied. 

"And those three elements make up ninety-five per 
cent, of our farm crops. Is that correct?" 

"Yes, Sir, as an average." 

"Well, now it seems to me, if nature thus provides 
ninety-five per cent, of all we need, we ought to find 
some way of furnishing the other five per cent. It 
makes me think of the young wife who told he hus- 
band she could live on bread and water, with his love, 
and he told her that if she would furnish the bread 
he'd skirmish around and get the water. But, say, 
did that South Carolina man use any fertilizer for 
that immense crop of corn?" 

"Some fertilizer, yes. He applied manure and 
fertilizer from February till June. In all he applied 
1000 bushels (about 30 tons) of farm manure, 600 
bushels of whole cotton seed, 900 pounds of cotton 
seed meal, 900 pounds of kainit, iioo pounds of 
guano, 200 pounds of bone meal, 200 pounds of acid 
phosphate, and 400 pounds of sodium nitrate." 

"I would also like to know the facts about this nitro- 
gen business," said Mr. Thornton. "I've understood 
that one could get some of it from the air, and I 
would much rather get it that way than to buy it 
from the fertilizer agent at twenty cents a pound. 
Cowpeas don't seem to help much, and we don't have 
the cotton seed, and we never have sufficient manure 
to cover much land." 

"It is a remarkable fact," said Percy, "that of the 
ten essential elements of plant food, nitrogen is the 
most abundant, measured by crop requirements, and 



88 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

at the same time the most expensive. The air above 
an acre of land contains enough carbon for a hundred 
bushels of corn per acre for two years, and enough 
nitrogen for five hundred thousand years; and yet 
the nitrogen in commercial fertilizers costs from fif- 
teen to twenty cents a pound. At commercial prices 
for nitrogen, every man who owns an acre of land is 
a millionaire." 

"You mean he has millions in the air," amended 
Mr. Thornton. 

"Yes, that is the better way to put it," Percy ad- 
mitted, "but the fact is he can not only get this nitro- 
gen for nothing by means of legume crops, but he 
is paid for getting it, because those crops are profita- 
ble to raise for their own value. Clover, alfalfa, cow- 
peas, and soy beans are all profitable crops, and they 
all have power to use the free nitrogen of the air. 

"There are a few important facts to be kept in 
mind regarding nitrogen : 

"A fifty-bushel crop of corn takes 75 pounds of 
nitrogen from the soil. Of this amount about 50 
pounds are in the grain, 24 pounds are in the stalks, 
and I pound in the cobs. A fifty-bushel crop of oats 
takes 48 pounds of nitrogen from the soil, 33 
pounds in the grain, and 15 in the straw. A twenty- 
five-bushel crop of wheat also takes 48 pounds of 
nitrogen from the soil, 36 pounds in the grain and 
12 in the straw. 

"These amounts will vary to some extent with the 
quality of the crops, just as the weight of a bushel of 
wheat varies from perhaps 56 to 64 pounds, al- 
though as an average wheat weighs 60 pounds to 
the bushel." 

"You surely remember figures well," remarked 
Mr. Thornton as he made some notations." 

"It is easy to remember what we think about much 
and often/* said Percy; "as easy to remember that 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 89 

a ton of cowpea hay contains 43 pounds of nitrogen 
as that Blalrville is 53 miles from Richmond." 

"I have added those figures together," continued 
Mr. Thornton, "and I find that the three crops, corn, 
oats, and wheat, would require 171 pounds of nitro- 
gen. Now suppose we raise a crop of cowpeas the 
fourth year, how much nitrogen would be added to 
the soil in the roots and stubble?" 

''Not any." 

"Do you mean to say that the roots and stubljle 
of the cowpeas would add no nitrogen to the soil? 
Surely that does not agree with the common talk." 

"It is even worse than that," said Percy. "The 
cowpea roots and stubble would contain less nitro- 
gen than the cowpea crop takes from a soil capable 
of yielding thirty bushels of corn or oats. Only about 
one-tenth of the nitrogen contained in the cowpea 
plant Is left In the roots and stubble when the crop is 
harvested. Suppose the yield is two tons per acre 
of cowpea hay! Such a crop would contain about 
86 pounds of nitrogen, and about 10 pounds of 
nitrogen per acre would be left in the roots and 
stubble." ^ - 

"Well that wouldn't go far toward replacing the 
171 pounds removed from the soil by the corn, oats, 
and wheat, that's sure," was Mr. Thornton's com- 
ment. 

"It is worse than that," Percy repeated. "Land 
that will furnish 48 pounds of nitrogen for a 
crop of oats or wheat will furnish more than 10 
pounds for a crop of cowpeas. At the end of such 
a four-year rotation such a soil would be about 
200 pounds poorer in nitrogen per acre than at 
the beginning. If all crops were removed and nothing 
returned." 

"How much would it cost to put that nitrogen 
back in commercial fertilizer?" asked Mr. Thorn- 



90 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ton. 

"That depends, of course, upon what kind of fer- 
tilizer is used." 

"Well most people around here who use fertilizer 
buy what the agent calls two-eight-two, and it costs 
about one dollar and fifty cents a hundred pounds; 
but it aan be bought by the ton for about tweny-five 
aSllars." 

" 'Two-eight-two' means that the fertilizer Is 
guaranteed to contain two per cent, of ammonia, 
eight per cent, of available 'phosphoric acid', and 
two per cent of potash." 

"Ammonia is the same as nitrogen. Is It not?" 

"No, it is not the same," replied Percy. "Am- 
monia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen. In 
order to have a clear understanding of the relation 
between ammonia and nitrogen we only need to 
know the combining weights of the elements. The 
smallest particle of an element Is called an atom. 
Hydrogen Is the lightest of all the elements and the 
weight of the hydrogen atom is used as the stand- 
ard or unit for the measure of all other atomic 
weights; thus the atom of hydrogen weighs one." 

"One what?" interrupted Mr. Thornton. 

"No one knows," replied Percy. "The atom is 
extremely small, much too small to be seen with the 
most powerful microscope; but you know all things 
are relative and we always measure one thing in 
terms of another. We say a foot Is twelve inches 
and an inch Is one-twelfth of a foot, and there we 
stop with a definition of each expressed in terms 
of the other, and both depending upon an arbitrary 
standard that somebody once adopted, and yet, 
while the foot is known in most countries, it is rare 
that two countries have exactly the same standard 
for this measure of length. 

We do not know the exact weight of the hydro- 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 91 

gen atom, but we do know Its relative weight. If 
the hydrogen atom weighs one then other atomic 
weights are as follows: 

12 for carbon 
14 for nitrogen 
16 for oxygen 
24 for magnesium 

31 for phosphorus 

32 for sulfur 

39 for potassium 

40 for calcium 
56 for iron 

"This means that the iron atom Is fifty-six times 
as heavy as the hydrogen atom. These atomic 
weights are absolutely necessary to a clear under- 
standing of the compounds formed by the union or 
combination of two or more elements. 

"One other thing Is also necessary. That is to 
keep in mind the number of bonds, or hands, pos- 
sessed by each atom. The atom of hydrogen has 
only one hand, and the same is true of potassium. 
Each atom of oxygen has two hands; so that one 
oxygen atom can hold two hydrogen atoms in the 
chemical compound called water (H-O-H or H^O). 
Other elements having two-handed atoms are mag- 
nesium and calcium. Strange to say, the sulfur 
atom has six hands but sometimes uses only two, 
the others seemingly being clasped together in pairs, 
I will write It out for you, thus : 

Hydrogen sulfid: H-S-H or H^S 
Sulfur dioxid: 0=S=0 or SO2 

Sulfur trioxid: 0=Ss. or S03 



92 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"The carbon atom has four hands, and atoms of 
nitrogen and phosphorus have five hands, but some- 
times use only three. Thus, In the compound called 
ammonia, one atom of nitrogen always holds three 
atoms of hydrogen; so, if you buy seventeen pounds 
of ammonia you would get only fourteen pounds of 
nitrogen and three pounds of hydrogen. This 
means that, if the two-eight-two fertilizer contains 
two per cent, of ammonia, it contains only one and 
two-thirds per cent, of the actual element nitrogen, 
and a ton of such fertilizer would contain thirty- 
three pounds of nitrogen. In other words it would 
take six tons of such fertilizer to replace the nitro- 
gen removed from one acre of land in four years 
if the crop yields were fifty bushels of corn and 
oats, twenty-five bushels of wheat, and two tons of 
cowpea hay." 

"Six tons I Why, that would cost a hundred and 
fifty dollars! Well, well, I thought I knew we 
couldn't afford to keep up our land with commer- 
cial fertilizer; but I didn't think It was that bad. Al- 
most forty dollars an acre a year!" 

"It need not be quite that bad," said Percy. "You 
see this two-eight-two fertilizer contains eight per 
cent, of so-called 'phosphoric acid' and two per cent, 
of potash, and those constituents may be worth 
much more than the nitrogen; but, so far as nitro- 
gen Is concerned, the two hundred pounds would 
cost from thirty to forty dollars in the best nitro- 
gen fertilizers in the market, such as dried blood or 
sodium nitrate." 

"Well, even that would be eight or ten dollars a 
year per acre, and that is as much as the land is 
worth, and this wouldn't include any other plant 
food elements, such as 'phosphoric acid' and potash. 
Would it?" 

"No, that much would be required for the nitro- 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 93 

gen alone If bought In commercial form. I under- 
stand that the farmers who use this common com- 
mercial fertilizer, apply about three hundred 
pounds of it to the acre perhaps twice In four years. 
That would cost about eight dollars for the four 
years, and the total nitrogen applied In the two ap- 
plications would amount to 10 pounds per acre. 

"It is not quite correct to call 'phosphoric acid' 
and potash plant food elements. They are not ele- 
ments but compounds." 

"Like ammonia, which Is part nitrogen and part 
hydrogen?" 

"The problem is somewhat similar, but not just 
the same," Percy replied. "These compounds con- 
tain oxygen and not hydrogen." 

"Well, I understand that both oxygen and hydro- 
gen are furnished by natural processes, the oxygen 
from carbon dioxid in the carbon cycle, and the hy- 
drogen from the water which falls In rain." 

"That is all true, but you really do not buy the 
hydrogen or oxygen. While they are Included In the 
two-elght-two guarantee, the price Is adjusted for 
that. Thus the cost of nitrogen would be just the 
same whether you purchase the fertilizer on the basis 
of seventeen cents a pound for the actual element ni- 
trogen, or fourteen cents a pound for the ammonia." 

"Yes, I see how that might be, but I don't see why 
the guarantee should be two per cent, of ammonia 
Instead of one and two-thirds per cent, of nitrogen, 
when the nitrogen Is all that gives it value." 

"There Is no good reason for It," said Percy. 
"It Is one of those customs that are conceived in 
Ignorance and continued In selfishness. It Is very 
much simpler to consider the whole subject on the 
basis of actual plant food elements, and I am glad 
to say that many of the state laws already require 
the nitrogen to be guaranteed In terms of the actual 



94 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

element, and a few states now require the phosphorus 
and potassium also to be reported on the element 
basis." 

"That Is hopeful, at least," said Mr. Thornton. 
"Now, If I am not asking too many questions or 
keeping you here too long, I shall be glad to have 
you explain two more points that come to my mind: 
First, how much of that two hundred pounds of ni- 
trogen can I put back In the manure produced on the 
farm; and, second, just what Is meant by potash 
and phosphoric add?" 

Percy made a few computations and then replied : 
"If you sell the wheat; feed all the corn, oats, and 
cowpea hay and half of the straw and corn fodder, 
and use the other half for bedding; and. If you save 
absolutely all of the manure produced. Including both 
the solid and liquid excrement; then It would be 
possible to recover and return to the land about 173 
pounds of nitrogen during the four years, compared 
with the 200 pounds taken from the soil. 

"I can't understand that," said Mr. Thornton. 
"How can that be when one of the crops Is cow- 
peas?" 

"In average live-stock and dairy farming," Per- 
cy continued, "about one-fourth of the nitrogen con- 
tained In the food consumed is retained In the milk 
and animal growth, and you can make the computa- 
tions for yourself. It should be kept in mind, more- 
over, that much of the manure produced on the aver- 
age farm is wasted. More than half of the nitrogen 
Is In the liquid excrement, and It is extremely diffi- 
cult to prevent loss of the liquid manure. There Is 
also large loss of nitrogen from the fermentation 
of manure in piles; and when you smell ammonia 
in the stable, see the manure pile steaming, or col- 
ored liquid soaking Into the ground beneath, or 
flowing away in rainy weather, you may know that 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 95 

nitrogen Is being lost. How many tons of manure 
can you apply to your land under such a system of 
farming as we have been discussing?" 

"Well, I've figured a good deal on manure," was 
the reply, "and I think with four fields producing 
such crops as you counted on, that I could possibly 
put ten or twelve tons to the acre on one field every 
year." 

"That would return from 100 to 120 pounds of 
nitrogen;" said Percy, "Instead of the 173 pounds 
possible to be returned If there Is no loss. There are 
three methods that may be used to reduce the loss 
of manure : One of these Is to do the feeding on the 
fields. Another Is to haul the manure from the sta- 
ble every day or two and spread It on the land. The 
third Is to allow the manure to accumulate In deep 
stalls for several weeks, using plenty of bedding to 
absorb the liquid and keep the animals clean, and then 
haul and spread It when convenient." 

"I'm afraid that last method would not do at all 
for the dairy farmer," said Mr. Thornton. "You 
see we have to keep things very clean and In sanitary 
condition." 

"Most often the cleanest and most sanitary meth- 
od the average farmer has of handling the manure In 
dairying," said Percy, "Is to keep It burled as much 
as possible under plenty of clean bedding; and one 
of the worst methods is to overhaul it every day by 
'cleaning' the stable, unless you could have concrete 
floors throughout, and flush them well once or twice 
a day, thus losing a considerable part of the valuable 
excrement. If you allow the manure to accumulate 
for several weeks at a time, It Is best to have suf- 
ficient room in the stable or shed so that the cows 
need not be tied. If allowed to run loose they will 
find clean places to lie down even during the night. 

"In case of horses, the manure can be kept burled 



()6 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

for several weeks If some means are used to prevent 
the escape of ammonia. Cattle produce what Is 
called a 'cold' manure, while It Is called 'hot' from 
horses because It decomposes so readily. One of the 
best substance to use for the prevention of loss of 
ammonia in horse stables is acid phosphate, which 
has power to unite with ammonia and hold it in a 
fixed compound. About one pound of acid phos- 
phate per day for each horse should be sprinkled over 
the manure. Of course the phosphorus contained in 
the acid phosphate has considerable value for its own 
sake, and care should be taken that you do not lose 
more phosphorus from the acid phosphate applied 
than the value of all the ammonia saved by this 
means. Porous earth floors may absorb very con- 
siderable amounts of liquid from wet manure lying 
underneath the dry bedding, and the acid phosphate 
sometimes injures the horses' feet; so that, as a rule, 
it is better to clean the horse stables every day and 
supply phosphorus in raw phosphate at one-fourth 
of Its cost In acid phosphate." 

"Before we leave the nitrogen question," said Mr. 
Thornton, "I want to ask If you can suggest how we 
can get enough of the several million dollars' worth 
we have in the air to supply the needs of our crops 
and build up our land?" 

"Grow more legumes, and plow more under, either 
directly or In manure." 

"That sounds easy, but can you suggest some prac- 
tical system?" 

"I think so. I know too little of your conditions 
to think I could suggest the best system for you to 
adopt; but I can surely suggest one that will supply 
nitrogen for such crop yields as we have considered : 
Suppose we change the order of the crops and grow 
wheat, corn, oats, and cowpeas, and grow clover with 
the wheat and oats, plowing the clover under in the 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 97 

spring as green manure for corn and cowpeas. If 
necessary to prevent the clover or weeds from pro- 
ducing seed, the field may be clipped with the mower 
in the late summer when the clover has made some 
growth after the wheat and oats have been removed. 
Leave this season's growth lying on the land. As 
an average it should amount to more than half a ton 
of hay per acre. The next spring the clover is al- 
lowed to grow for several weeks. It should be 
plowed under for corn on one field early in May and 
two or three weeks later the other field is plowed for 
cowpeas. The spring growth should average nearly 
a ton of clover hay per acre. In this way clover 
equivalent to about three tons of hay could be plowed 
under. Clover hay contains 40 pounds of nitro- 
gen per ton; so this would supply about 120 pounds 
of nitrogen In addition to the 173 pounds possible to 
be supplied in the manure. This would make possi- 
ble a total return of 293 pounds, while we figured 
some 200 pounds removed. Of course if you save 
only 100 pounds in the manure the amount returned 
would be reduced to 200 pounds." 

"There are two questionable points in this plan," 
said Mr. Thornton, "One is the impossibility, or at 
least the difficulty, of growing clover on this land. 
The other point is. How much of that 120 pounds of 
nitrogen returned In the clover is taken from the soil 
itself? I remember you figured 86 pounds of nitro- 
gen in two tons of cowpea hay, but you also as- 
sumed that about 29 pounds of It would be taken 
from the soil. 

"Yes, that is true," Percy replied, "at least 29 
pounds and probably more. You see the cowpeas 
grow during the same months as corn and on 
land prepared in about the same manner. If the 
soil will furnish 75 pounds of nitrogen to the 
corn crop, and 48 pounds to the oa!ts and wheat, 



98 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

it would surely furnish 29 pounds to the cowpeas. 
Of course this particular amount has no special 
significance, but the other definite amounts removed 
in corn, oats, and wheat aggregate 171, and the 29 
pounds were added to make the round 200 pounds. 
Perhaps 210 pounds would be nearer th^ truth, in 
which case the soil would furnish about half as much 
nitrogen to the cowpea crop as to the corn crop. 
This is reasonable considering that corn is the first 
crop grown after the manure is applied. You will 
remember that only one-tenth of the total nitrogen 
of the cowpea plant remains in the roots and stub- 
ble?" 

*'Yes, that's what we figured on." 

"The cowpea is an annual plant. It is planted, 
produces its seed, and dies the same season. It has 
no need to store up material in the roots for future 
use. Consequently the substance of the root is largely 
taken into the tops as the plant approaches matur- 
ity. It is different with the clover plant. This is a 
biennial with some tendency toward the perennial 
plant. It lives long and develops an extensive root 
system, and it stores up material in the roots during 
part of its hfe for use at a later period. About one- 
third of the total nitrogen content of the clover plant 
is contained in the roots and stubble. This means 
that the roots and stubble of a two-ton crop of clover 
would contain about forty pounds of nitrogen, or 
more than we assumed was taken from the soil by the 
cowpeas. But there is still another point in favor 
of the clover. The cowpeas make their growth dur- 
ing the summer months when nitrification is most ac- 
tive, whereas the clover growth we have counted 
on occurs chiefly during the fall and spring when 
nitrification is much less active, consequently the 
clover probably takes even a larger proportion of 
its nitrogen from the air than we have counted on." 



A LESSON IN FARM SCIENCE 99 

'That is rather confusing," said Mr. Thornton, 
"you say the cov/pea grows when nitrification is most 
active, and yet you say that it takes less nitrogen from 
the air than clover. Isn't that somewhat contradic- 
tory?" 

"I think not," said Percy, "Let me see. — Just 
what do you understand by nitrification?" 

"Getting nitrogen from the air, is it not?" 

"No, no. That explains it. Getting nitrogen from 
the air is called nitrogen fixation. This action is 
carried on by the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, such as the 
clover bacteria, the soy bean bacteria, the alfalfa bac- 
teria, which, by the way, are evidently the same as 
the bacteria of sweet clover, or mellilotus. Then we 
also have the cowpea bacteria, and these seem to be 
the same as the bacteria of the wild partridge pea, 
a kind of sensitive plant with yellow flowers, and a 
tiny goblet standing upright at the base of each com- 
pound leaf, — the plant called Cassia Chamaecrista 
by the botanist." 

"Nitrification is an altogether—" 

"Well, I declare! Excuse me, Sir, but that's 
Charlie calling the cows. Scotts, I don't see where 
the time has gone ! You'll excuse me. Sir, but I must 
look after separating the cream. You will greatly 
oblige me, Mr. Johnston, if you will have dinner with 
us and share our home to-night. In addition to the 
pleasure of your company, I confess that I am might- 
ily interested in this subject; and I would like espe- 
cially to get a clear understanding of that nitrifica- 
tion process, and we've not had time to discuss the 
potash and 'phosphoric acid', which I know cost 
some of our farmers a good part of all they get for 
their crops, and still their lands are as poor as ever." 

"I appreciate very much your kind invitation, Mr. 
Thornton. I came to you for correct information 
regarding the agricultural conditions here, and you 



lOo THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

were very kind and indulgent to answer my blunt 
questions, even concerning your own farm practice 
and experience. I feel, Sir, that I am already greatly 
indebted to you, but it will certainly be a great pleas- 
ure to me to remain with you to-night. 

For more than two hours they had been standing, 
leaning, or sitting in a field beside a shock of cow- 
pea hay, Percy toying with his soil auger, and Mr. 
Thornton making records now and then in his pocket 
note book. 



CHAPTER XV 
Coeducation 

PERCY took a lesson In turning the cream 
separator and after dinner Mrs. Thorn- 
ton assured him that she and her sister 
were greatly disappointed that they had 
not been permitted to hear the discussion 
concerning the use of science on the farm. 
"We have never forsaken our belief that these 
old farms can again be made to yield bountiful 
crops," she said, "as ours did for so many years 
under the management of our ancestors. 'Hope 
springs eternal in the human breast.' I stop with 
that for I do not like the rest of the couplet. We 
can see that some marked progress has been made 
under my husband's management, although he feels 
that it is very slow work building up a run-down 
farm. But he has raised some fine crops on the 
fields under cultivation, — as much as ten barrels of 
corn to the acre, have you not. Dear?" she asked. 

"Yes, fully that much, but even ten barrels per 
acre on one small field is nothing compared to the 
great fields of corn Mr. Johnston raises in the West, 
and it makes a mighty small show here on a nine- 
hundred-acre farm, most of which hasn't been crop- 
ped for more than twenty years; and even then it 
was given up because the negro tenants couldn't raise 
corn enough to live on. 

"I've talked some with the fertilizer agents, but 
they don't know much about fertilizers, except what 
they read in the testimonials published In the adver- 
tising booklets. I have had some good help from 
the agricultural papers, but most that Is written for 

lOI 



102 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

the papers doesn't apply to our farm, and it's so in- 
definite and incomplete, that IVe just spent this whole 
evening asking Mr. Johnston questions ; and I haven't 
given him a chance to answer them all yet." 

"I am sure you have not asked more quetions this 
afternoon than I did this forenoon," Percy remarked; 
"and all your answers were based on authentic his- 
tory or actual experience, while my answers were only 
what I have learned from others." 

"Well, if we were more ready to learn from oth- 
ers, it would be better for all of us," said Mr. Thorn- 
ton. "Experience is a mighty dear teacher and, even 
if we finally learn the lesson, it may be too ever- 
lasting late for us to apply it. Now we all want 
to learn about that process called nitrification." 

"It is an extremely interesting and important pro- 
cess," said Percy. "It includes the stages or steps by 
which the insoluble organic nitrogen of the soil is con- 
verted into soluble nitrate nitrogen, in which form it 
becomes available as food for all of our agricultural 
plants." 

"Excepting the legumes?" asked Mr. Thornton. 

"Excepting none," Percy replied. "The legume 
plants, like clover, take nitrogen from the soil so 
far as they can secure it in available form, and in this 
respect clover is not different from corn. The respect 
in which it is different is the power of clover to 
secure additional supplies of nitrogen from the air 
when the soil's available supply becomes inadequate to 
meet the needs of the growing clover. If the condi- 
tions are suitable for nitrogen-fixation, then the 
growth of the legume plants need not be limited by 
lack of nitrogen; whereas, nitrogen is probably the 
element that first limits the growth and yield of all 
other crops on your common soils." 

"Now, what do you think of that. Girls? With 
millions of dollars' worth of nitrogen in the air over 



COEDUCATION 103 

every acre, our crops are poor just because we don't 
use it. I wish you would tell me something about 
the suitable conditions for nitrogen-fixation, Mr. 
Johnston. You understand, Girls, that nitrogen-fix- 
ation Is simply getting nitrogen from the inexhausti- 
ble supply in the air by means of little microscopic 
organisms called bacteria, which live in little balls 
called tubercles attached to the roots of certain plants 
called legumes, like cowpeas and clover. Corn and 
wheat and such crops can't get this nitrogen. Now, 
Mr. Johnston Is telling about nitrification, a process 
which Is entirely different from nitrogen-fixation. Ex- 
cuse me, Mr. Johnston, but I wanted to make this 
plain to Mrs. Thornton and Miss Russell." 

"I am glad you did so," Percy replied. "As I 
was saying, nitrification has no connection whatever 
with the free nitrogen of the air. 

"All plants take their food in solution; that Is, 
the plant food taken from the soil must be dissolved 
in the soil water or moisture. Of the essential ele- 
ments of plant food, seven are taken from the soil 
through the roots Into the plant. These seven do 
not Include those of which water Itself Is composed. 
Now, these seven plant food elements exist in the soil 
almost exclusively in an insoluble form. In that con- 
dition they are not available to the plant for plant 
food; and it Is the business of the farmer to make 
this plant food available as fast as Is needed by his 
growing crops. 

"The nitrogen of the soil exists In the organic mat- 
ter; that is, in such materials as plant roots, weeds, 
and stubble, that may have been plowed under, or 
any kind of vegetable matter Incorporated with the 
soil. Including all sorts of crop residues, green ma- 
nures, and the common farm fertilizer from the sta- 
bles. When these organic materials are decomposed 
and distinegrated to such an extent that their struc- 



I04 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ture is completely destroyed, the resulting mass of 
partially decayed black organic matter is called hu- 
mus. The nitrogen of the soil is one of the con- 
stituents of this humus or other organic matter. It 
is not contained in the mineral particles of the soil. 
On the other hand the other six elements of plant 
food are contained largely in the mineral part of 
the soil, as the clay, silt, and sand. Thus the iron, 
calcium, magnesium, and potassium, all of which are 
called abundant elements, are contained in the mineral 
matter, and usually is considerable amounts, while 
they are found in the organic matter in very small 
proportion. The phosphorus and sulfur are found 
in very limited quantities in most soils, but they are 
present in both organic and mineral form. 

''Practically the entire stock or store of all of the 
elements in the soil is insoluble and consequently un- 
available for the use of growing plants; and, as I 
said, some of the chief plans and efforts of the farm- 
er should be directed to the business of making plant 
food available. 

"The nitrogen contained in the insoluble organic 
matter of the soil is made soluble and available by 
the process called nitrification. Three different kinds 
of bacteria are required to bring about the complete 
change." 

"Are these bacteria different from the nitrogen- 
fixing bacteria?" asked Mr. Thornton. 

"Entirely different," Percy replied, "and there are 
three distinct kinds, one for each of the three steps 
in the process. 

"The first may be called ammonia bacteria. They 
have power to convert organic nitrogen into ammonia 
nitrogen; that is, into the compound of nitrogen and 
hydrogen; and this step in the process is called am- 
monification. 

"The other two kinds are the true nitrifying bac- 



COEDUCATION 105 

terla. One of them converts the ammonia Into ni- 
trites, and the other changes the nitrites Into ni- 
trates. These two kinds are known as the nitrite 
bacteria and the nitrate bacteria. 

"Technically the last two steps In the process are 
nitrification proper; but, speaking generally, the 
term nitrification Is used to Include the three steps, 
or both ammonlficatlon and nitrification proper. 

"Now, the nitrifying bacteria require certain con- 
ditions, otherwise they will not perform their func- 
tions. Among these essential conditions are the pres- 
ence of moisture and free oxygen, a supply of car- 
bonates, certain food materials for the bacteria them- 
selves, and a temperature within certain limits. 

"You may remember, Mr. Thornton, that more 
soil nitrogen is made available for cowpeas during 
the summer weather than for clover during the cool- 
er fall and spring?" 

"Yes, I remember that distinction." 

"I declare," said Miss Russell, "Tom talks as 
though he had been there and seen the things going 
on. I haven't seen you using any microscope." 

"Well, I tell you, I've mighty near seen 'em," was 
the reply. "Mr. Johnston makes everything so 
plain that I can mighty near see what he saw when 
he looked through the microscope." 

"I greatly enjoyed my microscopic work," said 
Percy, "and still more the work in the chemical lab- 
oratory where we finally learned to analyze soils, to 
take them apart and see what they contain, — how 
much nitrogen, how much phosphorus, how much 
limestone, or how much soil acidity, which means that 
limestone Is needed. Then I also enjoyed the work 
in the pot-culture laboratory, where we learned not 
to analyze but to synthesize ; that Is, to put different 
materials together to make a soil. Thus, we would 
make one soil and put In all of the essential plant 



io6 THE STORY OF THE S<DIL 

food elements except nitrogen, and another with only 
phosphorus lacking, and still another with both nitro- 
gen and phosphorus present, and all of the other es- 
sential elements provided, except potassium, or mag- 
nesium, or iron. These prepared soils were put in 
glass jars having a hole in the bottom for drainage, 
and then 'the same kind of seeds were planted in 
each jar or pot. Some students planted corn, others 
oats or wheat or any kind of farm seeds. I grew 
rape plants in one series of pots, and I have a photo- 
graph with me which shows very well that all of the 
plant food elements are essential. 

"You see one pot contained no plant food and one 
was prepared with all of the ten essential elements 
provided. Then the other pots contained all but one 
of the necessary soil elements, as indicated in the 
photograph. 

"Why, I never saw anything like that," said Mrs. 
Thornton. 

"But I have many a time," said her husband, 
"right here on this old farm; I don't know what's 
lacking, of course, but some years I've thought most 
everything was lacking. But, according to this pot- 
culture test, you can't raise any crops if just one of 
these ten elements is lacking, no matter how much 
you have of the other nine; and it seems to make no 
difference which one is lacking, you don't get any 
crop. Is that the fact, Mr. Johnston?" 

"Yes, Sir," Percy repHed. "Where all of the ele- 
ments are provided, a fine crop is produced, but in 
each case where a single element is omitted that is 
the only difference, and in some cases the result is 
worse than where no plant food is supplied. It seems 
to hurt the plant worse to throw its food supply com- 
pletely out of balance than to leave it with nothing 
except what it draws from the meager store in the 
seed planted. Of course all the pots were planted 




-^ ^ i^ 

I "^ 
^^ ^ 

O O rt 

s ^ S 

'Mi 



o ^ 



COEDUCATION 107 

with the same kind of seed at the same time, and 
they were all watered uniformly every day." 

"Those results are very striking, Indeed," said 
Miss Russell," but I suppose one would never see 
such marked differences under farm conditions?" 

"Only under unusual or abnormal conditions," 
Percy replied, "but the fact Is that as a very general 
rule our crop yields are limited chiefly because the 
supply of available plant food Is limited. Sometimes 
the clover crop Is a complete failure on untreated 
land, while It lives and produces a good crop If the 
soil Is properly treated; and In such cases the differ- 
ence developed In the field Is just as marked as In the 
pot-cultures. In general we may set it down as an 
absolute fact that the productive power of normal 
land depends primarily upon the ability of the soil 
to feed the crop. 

"I have here a photograph of a corn field on very 
abnormal soil. They had the negative at the Ex- 
periment Station and I secured a print from it, in 
part because I became interested in a story con- 
nected with this experiment field, which our professor 
of soil fertility reported to us. 

"This shows a field of corn growing on peaty 
swamp land, of which there are several hundred thou- 
sand acres In the swamp regions of Illinois, Indiana, 
and Wisconsin. This peaty soil Is extremely rich 
in humus and nitrogen, well supplied with phosphor- 
us and other elements, except potassium; but in this 
element It Is extremely deficient. This land was 
drained out at large expense, and produced two or 
three large crops because the fresh grass roots con- 
tained some readily available potassium; but after 
three or four years the corn crop became a complete 
failure, as you see from the untreated check plot on 
the right; while the land on the left, where potas- 
sium was applied, produced forty-five bushels per 



io8 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

acre the year this photograph was taken, and with 
heavier treatment from sixty to seventy-five bushels 
are produced." 

"Seventy-five bushels would be fifteen barrels of 
corn per acre. How's that, Little Wife?" asked 
Tom. 

"Its even more wonderful than the pot culture," 
replied Mrs. Thornton; "but how much did the po- 
tassium cost, Mr. Johnston." 

"About three dollars an acre," replied Percy; but 
of course the land has almost no value if not treated; 
and as a matter of fact the three dollars is less than 
half the interest on the difference in value between 
this land and our ordinary corn belt land. These 
peaty swamp lands are to a large extent in scattered 
areas, and commonly, if a farmer owns some of this 
kind of land, he also owns some other good land, 
perhaps adjoining the swamp; but this is not always 
the case, and was not with the man in the story I 
mentioned. This man lived a few miles away and 
his farm was practically all of this peaty swamp 
land type. He heard of this experiment field and 
came with his family to see it. 

"As he stood looking, first at the corn on the treat- 
ed and untreated land, and then at his wife and large 
family of children, he broke down and cried like a 
child. Later he explained to the superintendent who 
was showing him the experiments, that he had put 
the best of his life into that kind of land. 'The 
land looked rich,' said he, — 'as rich as any land I 
ever saw. I bought it and drained it and built my 
home on a sandy knoll. The first crops were fairly 
good, and we hoped for better crops; but instead 
they grew worse and worse. We raised what we could 
on a small patch of sandy land, and kept trying to 
find out what we could grow on this black bogus 
land. Sometimes I helped the neighbors and got a 



■i^tr%:^'^i^ 




Corn on peaty swamp land, yielding 45 bushels per acre where 
potassium was applied, hut complete 
failure on the untreated plot. 



COEDUCATION 109 

little money, but my wife and I and my older children 
have wasted twenty years on this land. Poverty, 
poverty, always ! How was I to know that this 
single substance which you call potassium was all we 
needed to make this land productive and valuable? 
Oh, if I had only known this twenty years ago, be- 
fore my wife had worked like a slave, — before my 
children had grown almost to manhood and woman- 
hood, in poverty and ignorance !' " 

"Why wasn't the matter investigated sooner?" 
asked Miss Russell. "Why didn't the government 
find out what the land needed long before?" 

"I am a Yankee," said Percy. "Why have Ameri- 
can statesmen ridden back and forth to the national 
capitol through a wilderness of depleted and aban- 
doned farms in the eastern states for half a century 
or more before the first appropriation was made for 
the purpose of agricultural investigation? and ^liy, 
even now, does not this rich federal government ap- 
propriate to the agricultural experiment station in 
every state a fund at least equal to the aggregate 
salaries of the congressmen from the same state, this 
fund to be used exclusively for the purpose of dis- 
covering and demonstrating profitable systems of 
permanent agriculture on every type of soil? Why 
do we as a nation expend five hundred million dollars 
annually for the development of the army and navy, 
and only fifteen millions for agriculture, the one In- 
dustry whose ultimate prosperity must measure the 
destiny of the nation? 

"Moralists sometimes tell us that the fall of the 
Babylonian Empire, the fall of the Egyptian Empire, 
of the Grecian Empire, and the Roman Empire, were 
all due to the development of pride and Immorality 
among those peoples; whereas, we believe that civi- 
lization tends rather toward peace, security, and high- 
er citizenship. Is not the chief explanation for the 



no THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ultimate and successive fall of those great empires to 
be found in the exhausted or wasted agricultural re- 
sources of the country? 

*'The land that once flowed with milk and honey 
might then support a mighty empire, with Indepen- 
dent resources sufficient for times of great emergen- 
cies, but now that land seems almost barren and sup- 
ports a few wandering bands of marauding Arabs 
and villages of beggars. 

"The power and world influence of a nation must 
pass away with the passing of material resources; 
for poverty Is helpless, and ignorance is the inevitable 
result of continued poverty. Only the prosperous 
can aftord education or trained intelligence. 

*'01d land is poorer than new land. There are 
exceptions, but this is the rule. This fact Is known 
andxrecognized by all America. 

"What does It mean? It means that the practice 
of the past and present art of agriculture leads to- 
ward land ruin,— not only In China, where famine 
and starvation are common, notwithstanding that 
thousands and thousands of Chinese are employed 
constantly In saving every particle of fertilizing ma- 
terial, even gathering the human excrements from 
every house and by-place In village and country, as 
carefully as our farmers gather honey from their 
hives; not only In India where starvation's ghost Is 
always present, where, as a rule, there are more hun- 
gry people than the total population of the United 
States; not only in Russia where famine is frequent; 
but, likewise In the United States of America, the 
present practice of the art of agriculture tends to- 
ward land ruin. 

"Nations rise and fall; so does the productive 
power of vast areas of land. Better drainage, bet- 
ter seed, better Implements, and more thorough til- 
lage, all tend toward larger crops, but they also tend 



COEDUCATION tii 

toward ultimate land ruin, for the removal of larger 
crops only hastens soil depletion. 

"To bring about the adoption of systems of farm- 
ing that will restore our depleted Eastern and South- 
ern soils, and that will maintain or increase the pro- 
ductive power of our remaining fertile lands of the 
Great Central West, where we are now producing 
half of the total corn crop of the entire world, is not 
only the most important material problem of the 
United States; but to bring this about is worthy of, 
and will require, the best thought of the most influ- 
ential men of America. Without a prosperous agri- 
culture here there can be no permanent prosperity for 
our American institutions. While some small coun- 
tries can support themselves by conducting trade, 
commerce, and manufacture, for other countries, 
American agriculture must not only be self-support- 
ing, but, in large degree, agriculture must support our 
other great industries. 

"Without agriculture, the coal and iron would re- 
main in the earth, the forest would be left uncut, the 
railroads would be abandoned, the cities depopulated, 
and the wooded lands and water-ways would again 
be used only for hunting and fishing. Shall we not 
remember, for example, that the coal mine yields a 
single harvest — one crop — and is then forever aban- 
doned; while the soil must yield a hundred — yes, a 
thousand crops, and even then it must be richer and 
more productive than at the beginning, if those who 
come after us are to continue to multiply and replen- 
ish the earth. 

"Even the best possible system of soil improve- 
ment, we must admit, is not the absolute and final so- 
lution of this, the most stupendous problem of the 
United States. If war gives way to peace and pes- 
tilence to science, then the time will come when the 
soils of America shall reach the limit of the highest 



112 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

productive power possible to be permanently main- 
tained, even by the general adoption of the most 
practical scientific methods; and before that limit is 
reached, if power, progress, and plenty are to con- 
tinue in our beloved country, there must be developed 
and enforced the law of the survival of the fittest; 
otherwise there is no ultimate future for America 
different from that of China, India, and Russia, the 
only great agricultural countries comparable to the 
United States. An enlightened humanity must grant 
to all the right to live, but the reproduction and per- 
petuation of the unfit can never be an absolute and . 
inalienable right. 

"Under the present laws and customs, a man may 
spend half his life in the insane asylum or in the 
penitentiary, and still be the father of a dozen chil- 
dren with degenerate tendencies. There should be 
no reproduction from convicted criminals, insane per- 
sons, or other degenerates. Thieves, grafters, bri- 
bers and bribe-takers all belong in the same class, 
and it should not be left possible for them to repro- 
duce their kind. They are a burden upon the public 
which the public must bear, but the public is under 
no obligation to permit their multiplication. The 
children of such should never become the parents of 
others. It is a crime against both the child and the 
public. 

"No doubt you will consider this extremely vis- 
ionary, and so it is; but unless America can see a 
vision somewhat like this, a population that is 
doubling three or four times each century, and an 
area of depleted soils that is also increasing at a 
rapid rate will combine to bring our Ship of State 
into a current against which we may battle in vain; 
for there is not another New World to bring new 
wealth, new prosperity, and new life and light after 
another period of 'Dark Ages.' 



COEDUCATION, 113 

"Whether we shall ever apply any such intelli- 
gence to the possible improvement of our own race 
as we have in the great improvement of our cattle 
and corn is, of course, an open question; but to some 
extent you will agree that the grafter and the insane, 
like the poet, are born and not made. Of course 
there are, and always will be, marked variations, 
mutants, or 'sports,' l3ut, nevertheless, natural inher- 
itance is the master key to the improvement of every 
form of life ; and it is an encouraging fact that some 
of the states, as Indiana, for example, have already 
adopted laws looking toward the reduction of the 
reproduction of convicted degenerates." 



CHAPTER XVI 
Past Self- Redemption 

BUT I have rambled far from the subject 
assigned me," Percy continued. 
"That's only because I Interrupt and 
ask so many side questions," replied 
Mr. Thornton; "but I hope yet to 
learn more about those 'suitable condi- 
tions' for nitrogen-fixation and nitrification. It be- 
gins to look as though the nitrogen cycle deviates a 
good deal from a true circle, and nature seems to 
need some help from us to make that element cir- 
culate as fast as we need it. I confess, too, that this 
method appeals to me much more than the twenty- 
cents-a-pound proposition of the fertilizer agent." 

"Yes, indeed," added Miss Russell; and if we 
had to spend three dollars an acre on this farm our 
'Slough of Despond' would be worse than the 
slough, or swamp, Mr. Johnston has told us about." 
"I fear the practical and profitable Improvement 
of an acre of this land Is more likely to cost thirty 
dollars than three," said Percy. 

"Oh, for the land's sake!" came the ejaculation. 
"Yes, 'for the land's sake'," repeated Percy; "and 
for the sake of those who must depend upon the land 
for their support for all time hereafter." 

"How ridiculous ! Thirty dollars an acre for the 
improvement of land that will not bring ten dollars 
to begin with!" 

"It is better to look at the other end of the un- 
dertaking," said Percy. "Suppose you invest thirty 
dollars an acre and in a few years make your ten- 
dollar land produce as much as our two-hundred dol- 

114 



PAST SELF-REDEMPTION 115 

larland!" ^ 

"But, Mr. Johnston; do you realize how much 
money it would require to expend thirty dollars an 
acre on nine hundred acres?" continued Miss Rus- 
sell, with stronger accentuation. 

"Twenty-seven thousand dollars," was the simple 
reply. 

"Well, Sir," she said, "you are welcome to this 
whole farm for ten thousand dollars." 

"I am not wishing for it," he answered. "In fact 
I would not take this farm as a gift, if I were obliged 
to keep It and pay the taxes and had no other prop- 
erty or source of income." 

"That's just the kind of talk I've been putting up 
to these girls," said Mr. Thornton. "By the time 
we live and pay about two hundred dollars a year 
taxes on all this land, I tell you, there Is nothing left; 
and we'd been worse off than we are, except for the 
sale we made to the railroad company." 

"Well, the Russells lived here very well for more 
than a hundred years," she retorted, "and my grand- 
father supported one nigger for every ten acres of 
the farm, but I would like to know any farmers about 
here who can put thirty dollars an acre, or even ten 
dollars an acre, back into their soil for Improve- 
ment." 

"The problem is indeed a serious one," said Per- 
cy. "Unquestionably much of the land in these older 
states is far past the point of possible self-redemption 
under the present ownership. Land from which the 
fertility has been removed by two hundred years of 
cropping, until It has ceased to return a living to 
those who till It, cannot have its fertility restored suf- 
ficiently to again make its cultivation profitable, ex- 
cept by making some considerable investment in or- 
der to replace those essential elements the supply of 
which has beeome so limited as to limit the crop 



ii6 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

yields to a point where their value is below the cost 
of production. Even on the remaining productive 
lands in the North Central States, if we are ever to 
adopt systems of permanent agriculture, it must be 
done while the landowners are still prosperous. If 
the people of the corn belt repeat the history of the 
Eastern States until their lands cease to return a profit 
above the total cost of production, then they, too, will 
have nothing left to invest in the improvement of 
their lands." 

"But their fertility could still be restored by out- 
side capital?" suggested Mr. Thornton. "I know 
very well that is the only solution of our problem." 

"Well, Tom, I would like to know where the out- 
side capital is coming from," said Miss Russell. 

"Marry rich," he replied. "Don't make such a 
blunder as your sister did." 

"I fear that Mr. Johnston will suggest that we sell 
some more land," remarked Mrs. Thornton. 

"Alright," replied her sister; "and we will sell 
it to him. If he won't take the whole farm as a gift, 
we'll cut it to any length he wishes. Do you con- 
sider 'Ten Acres Enough', Mr. Johnston; or would 
you prefer 'Three Acres and Liberty?' We'll do 
our best to enable you to enjoy 'The Fat of the 
Land'. Just tell us how large a farm you want; I 
know already that you do not want nine hundred 
acres." 

"My dear Miss Russell," said Percy. "This is 
so sudden;" whereupon Mr. Thornton nearly fell 
from his chair and Mrs. Thornton laughed heartily 
at the sister's expense who blushed as she might have 
done twenty years before. 

"However," Percy resumed, "if you should decide 
to dispose of about half of that seven hundred acres 
which you use only as a safety bank for most of your 
two hundred dollars in taxes, please consider me a 



PAST SELF-REDEMPTION 117 

prospective taker." 

'Take her," said Mr. Thorfiton, and again con- 
fusion reigned. ^ 

"Tom Is so anxious to get rid of his sister-in-law 
that he reminds me of the man whose mother-in-law 
died," said Miss Russell. "He was too far from 
home to return to the usual funeral, and they tele- 
graphed him the sad news and asked if they should 
embalm, cremate, or bury the remains. He wired 
back: 'Embalm, cremate, and bury.' " 

"That matter of outside capital Is by no means so 
substantial as it might seem," said Percy. "It is 
worth while to consider how little real wealth there 
would be In America If the remaining rich lands 
should become Impoverished. The railroads would 
at once cease to pay dividends, and those who are now 
millionaires in railroad stock would find themselves 
on the rapid road to poverty. The manufacturer of 
finished products from the raw materials raised on 
the farm, the manufacturer of agricultural imple- 
ments, and the great urban population whose income 
is from the trade In raw materials and manufactured 
goods would soon see their wealth shrivel. The great 
sky scrapers of the cities would be left for the owls 
and bats to harbor in, if our agricultural lands ceased 
to yield their great harvests. Meanwhile the farm- 
ing people would continue to live upon the meager 
products still produced from the impoverished soil, 
even though they had no surplus food to ship Into 
the cities. Human labor would replace that of do- 
mestic animals on the farm, just as it has done in 
China and India, In part because man's labor Is 
worth more than that of the beast, when measured 
only by the amount of food consumed, and in part 
because a thousand bushels of grain will support five 
times as many people as can be supported for the 
same time upon the animal products that could be 



1 18 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

produced by feeding the grain.'' 

''Oh, that is such a gloomy view to take of it," 
said Miss Russell. 

"And all the world loves an optimist," replied 
Percy laughingly. "Soils do not wear out; there is 
no poor land; the farms are better and the crops 
larger than ever before ; and we are the people of the 
world's greatest nation, with an assured future glory 
which surpasses all conception." 

"As soon as we get the canal dug," suggested Mr. 
Thornton. 

"Yes, we will surely be able to dig that Panama 
ditch," said Percy; "and probably our resources will 
last to cut a gash or two In our own interior, if we 
don't build too many battle ships. You know Egypt 
built three great pyramids before her resources be- 
came reduced to such an extent that the people re- 
quired all their energies to secure a living." 



CHAPTER XVII 
More Problems 

"-i|^ -y OW let us give Mr. Johnston a chance 

1^^ to tell us about the nitrogen problem," 

^^^ said Mr. Thornton. "I'm pretty well 

I ^j satisfied with the natural circulation 
-" of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen; but 
I want to understand all I can of the 
practical methods of securing and utilizing nitrogen; 
and we have heard almost nothing about the other 
six essential elements which the soil must furnish. 
Let me see. — I think you said that iron, calcium, 
magnesium and potassium are usually abundant in 
the soil, while phosphorus and sulfur are very lim- 
ited." 

"Yes, that is the rule under general or average 
conditions, but it should be stated that the amount of 
sulfur required by plants is very small as compared 
with phosphorus, a difference which places a great 
distinction between them. Besides considerable 
quantities of sulfur are returned to the air in the 
combustion of coal and organic matter, and this re- 
turns to the soil in rain. The information thus far 
secured shows that sulfur rarely if ever limits the 
crop yields under field conditions ; and the same may 
be said of iron, which is required by plants in very 
small amount and is contained in practically all soils 
in enormous quantities. 

"While normal soils contain abundance of potas- 
sium, with about half as much calcium and one- 
fourth as much magnesium; yet, when measured by 
crop requirements for plant food, the supplies of 
these three elements are not markedly different. On 

119 



120 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

the other hand, about 300 pounds of calcium are 
lost per acre per annum by leaching from good soils 
in humid climates, compared with about 10 pounds 
of potassium and intermediate amounts of mag- 
nesium; so that, of these three elements, calcium re- 
quires by far the most consideration and potassium 
the least, even aside from the use of limestone to 
correct or prevent soil acidity. 

"Among the conditions essential for nitrification 
may be mentioned the presence of free oxygen and 
limestone; and of course all bacteria require certain 
food materials, resembling other plants in this re- 
spect." 

"Are they plants?" asked Mrs. Thornton. "I 
thought they were tiny little animals." 

"No, they are classified as plants," replied Percy; 
"but the scientists have difficulty with some of the 
lower organism to decide whether they are plants or 
animals. The college boys used to say that some 
animals were plants in the botanical department and 
animals again when they studied zoology. Orton 
says it is easy to tell a cow from a cabbage, but im- 
possible to assign any absolute, distinctive character 
which will divide animal life from plant life. 

"The oxygen is essential for nitrification, because 
that is an oxidation process. That is, it is a kind of 
combustion, so to speak. The organic matter is oxi- 
dized or converted into substances containing more 
oxygen than in the original form. In ammonification 
the carbon is separated or divorced from the nitro- 
gen and united with oxygen. Some of the hydrogen 
of the organic matter remains temporarily with the 
carbon, and some is held temporarily with the nitro- 
gen in the form of ammonia. 

"The nitrite bacteria replace two of the hydrogen 
atoms in ammonia with one of oxygen, and insert 
another oxygen atom between the nitrogen and the 



MORE PROBLEMS 121 

remaining hydrogen, thus forming nitrous acid; 
H-O-N-0, or HNO2. 

"The nitrate bacteria then cause the direct addition 
of another oxygen atom, which is held by the two 
extra bonds of the nitrogen atom, which you will re- 
member is a five-handed atom. 

"Thus you will see the absolute need of free oxy- 
gen in the nitrification process; and we can control 
the rate of nitrification to a considerable extent by 
our methods of tillage. In soils deficient in organic 
matter, excessive cultivation may still liberate suf- 
ficient nitrogen for a fairly satisfactory crop; and the 
benefits of such excessive cultivation for potatoes and 
other vegetables is more often due to increased nitri- 
fication than to the conservation of moisture, to 
which it is frequently ascribed by agricultural writers. 

"Thus the more we cultivate, the more we hasten 
the nitrification, oxidation, or destruction of the or- 
ganic matter or humus of the soil. Where the 
soil is well supplied with decaying organic matter, 
we rarely need to cultivate in a humid section like 
this, except for the purpose of killing weeds. 

"The presence of carbonates in the soil is essen- 
tial for nitrification, because the bacteria will not 
continue the process in the presence of their own 
product. Nitrification ceases if the nitrous or nitric 
acid remains as such; but, in the presence of car- 
bonates, such as calcium carbonate (ordinary lime- 
stone) or the double carbonate of magnesium and 
calcium (magnesian limestone, or dolomite), the 
nitrous acid or nitric acid is converted into a neutral 
salt of calcium or magnesium, one of these atoms 
taking the place of two hydrogen atoms and form- 
ing, say, calcium nitrate: Ca(N03)2. At the same 
time the hydrogen atoms take the place of the cal- 
cium in limestone (CaC03), and form carbonic acid 
(H2CO3), which at once decomposes Into water 



122 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

(H^O) and carbon dioxid (CO^), which thus es- 
capes as a gas Into the air or remains in the pores 
of the soil. 

"The fact that nitrification will not proceed in 
the presence of acid reminds us that only a certain 
degree of acidity can be developed in sour milk. 
Here the lactic acid bacteria produce the acid from 
milk sugar, but the process stops when about seven 
tenths of one per cent, of lactic acid has developed. 
If some basic substance, such as lime. Is then added, 
the acid Is neutralized and the fermentation again 
proceeds. 

"In the general process of decay and oxidation of 
the organic matter of the soil, the nitrogen thus 
passes through the forms of ammonia, nitrous acid, 
and nitric acid, and at the same time the carbon 
passes into various acid compounds, including the 
complex humic and ulmic acids, and smaller 
amounts of acetic acid (found In vinegar), 
latic acid, oxalic acid (found in oxalis), and tar- 
taric acid (found in grapes). The final oxidation 
products of the carbon and hydrogen are carbon 
dioxid and water, which result from the decom- 
position of the carbonic acid. 

"Now the various acids of carbon and nitrogen 
constitute one of the most Important factors In soil 
fertility. They are the means by which the farmer 
can dissolve and make available for the growing 
crops the otherwise insoluble mineral elements, 
such as iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium, 
all of which are contained In most soils In great 
abundance. These elements exist In the soil chiefly 
in the form of insoluble silicates. Silicon itself is 
a four-handed element which bears somewhat the 
same relation to the mineral matter of the soil as 
carbon bears to the organic matter. Quartz sand is 
silicon dioxid (SIO2). Oxygen, which is present 



MORE PROBLEMS 123 

in nearly all substances, including air, water, and 
most solids, constitutes about one-half of all known 
matter. Silicon is next in abundance, amounting to 
more than one-fourth of the solid crust of the 
earth. Aluminum is third in abundance (about 
seven per cent), aluminum silicate being common 
clay. Iron, calcium, potassium, sodium, and mag- 
nesium, in this order, complete the eight abundant 
elements, which aggregate about ninety-eight per 
cent, of the solid crust of the earth. 

"It is worth while to know that about two and 
one-half per cent, of the earth's crust is potassium, 
while about one-tenth of one per cent, is phos- 
phorus; also that when a hundred bushels of corn 
are sold from the farm, seventeen pounds of phos- 
phorus, nineteen of potassium, and seven of mag- 
nesium are carried away. 

"The acids formed from the decaying organic 
matter not only liberate for the use of crops the min- 
eral elements contained in the soil in abundance, but 
they also help to make available the phosphorus of 
raw phosphate, when naturally contained in the soil, 
as it is to some extent in all soils, or when applied 
to the soil in the fine-ground natural phosphate from 
the mines. 

"Now the increase or decrease of organic mat- 
ter in the soil is measured with a very good degree 
of satisfaction by the element nitrogen, which is a 
regular constituent of the organic matter of the 
soil; and you are already familiar, Mr. Thornton, 
with the amounts of nitrogen contained in average 
farm manure and in some of our most common 
crops." 

"Yes, Sir, I have some of the figures in my note 
book and I mean to have them in my head very 
soon. But, say, that organic matter seems to be a 
thing of tremendous importance, and I'm sure we've 



124 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

got mighty little of It. I think about the only thing 
we'll need to do to make this old farm productive 
again Is to grow the vegetation and plow It under. 
As It decays, It will furnish the nitrogen, and liber- 
ate the phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and mag- 
nesium; and we may have plenty of all of them just 
waiting to be liberated." 

"That Is altogether possible," said Percy; but It 
must be remembered that your soil Is acid and con- 
sequently will not grow clover or alfalfa successfully, 
or even cowpeas v^ery satisfactorily. A liberal use 
of ground limestone and large use of clover may be 
sufficient to greatly Improve your soil; but If I am 
permitted to separate Miss Russel and the Thorn- 
tons"— Mr. Thornton's hilarious "Ha, ha" cut 
Percy short. He crimsoned and the ladles smiled at 
each other with expressions that revealed nothing 
whatever. 

"Now let me finish," Percy continued, when Mr. 
Thornton had somewhat subsided. "I say. If I am 
permitted to separate Miss Russell and the Thorn- 
tons from about three hundred acres of their land, I 
shall certainly wish to know Its total content of 
phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, be- 
fore I make any purchase; and. If you will remem- 
ber the pot cultures and the peaty swamp land, I 
think you will agree with me." 

"Well, I shall be mighty glad to know that my- 
self," said Mr. Thornton, "and we shall much ap- 
preciate It If you can tell us how to secure that In- 
formation." 

"We can collect some soil tomorrow," Percy re- 
plied, "and send It to a chemist for analysis." 

"Good," said Mr. Thornton; "now just one 
more question, and I think I shall sleep better If I 
have It answered tonight. Just what Is meant by 
potash and phosphoric acid?" 



MORE PROBLEMS 125 

''Pota-sh," said Percy, "Is a compound of potas- 
sium and oxygen. The proportions are one atom 
of oxygen and two atoms of potassium, which you 
may remember are single-handed and weigh thirty- 
nine, so that seventy-eight of potassium unite with six- 
teen of oxygen. A better name for the compound Is 
potassium oxid: K-0. The Latin name for potassium 
is kahum, and K is the symbol used for an atom of 
that element. If you were to purchase potassium In 
the form of potassium chlorld, which in the East is 
often called by the old Incorrect name 'muriate of 
potash,' the salt might be guaranteed to contain a 
certain percentage of potash, which, however, con- 
sists of eighty-three per cent, of potassium and seven- 
teen per cent, of oxygen." 

"Just what is this potassium eWorld, or 'muriate 
of potash'?" 

"Pure potassium chlorid contains only the two 
elements, potassium and chlorin." 

"But didn't you say that it was guaranteed to con- 
tain potash and that potash is part oxygen? Now 
you say it contains only potassium and chlorin." 

"Yes, I am sorry to say, that this Is one of those 
blunders of our semi-scientific ancestors for which 
we still suffer. The chemist understands that the 
meaning of the guarantee of potash is the amount of 
potash that the potassium present in the potassium 
chlorld could be converted into. The best you can 
do Is to reduce the potash guarantee to potassium by 
taking eighty-three per cent, of it; or, to be more 
exact, divide by ninety-four and multiply by seventy- 
eight, in order to eliminate the sixteen parts of oxy- 
gen. 

"It may be well to keep In mind that when the 
druggist says potash he means potassium hydroxid, 
KOH, a compound of potassium, hydrogen, and 
oxygen, as the name indicates." 



126 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"You mentioned the word chlorin," said Mr. 
Thornton. "That Is another element?" 

"Yes, that Is a very common element. Ordinary 
table salt Is sodium chlorld: NaCl. Sodium Is call- 
ed natrium In Latin, and Na is the symbol used in 
English to be In harmony with all other languages, 
for practically all use the same chemical symbols. 
Sodium and potassium are very similar elements in 
some respects, and in the free state they are very 
peculiar, apparently taking fire when thrown Into wa- 
ter. Chlorin In the free state Is a poisonous gas. 
Thus the change in properties is well illustrated 
when these two dangerous elements, sodium and 
chlorin, unite to form the harmless compound which 
we call common salt. 

"It is a shame," continued Percy, "that agricul- 
tural science has so long been burdened with such 
a term as 'phosphoric acid,' which serves to compli- 
cate and confuse what should be made the simplest 
subject to every American farmer and landowner. 
As agriculture Is the fundamental support of Amer- 
ica and of all her other great industries, so the fer- 
tility of the soil is the absolute support of every 
form of agriculture. Now, If there Is any one fac- 
tor that can be the most Important, where so many 
are positively essential, then the most Important fac- 
tor in the problem of adopting and maintaining 
permanent systems of profitable agriculture on 
American soils is the element phosphorus. 

"Phosphorus in very appreciable amount Is posi- 
tively necessary for the growth of every organism. 
It is an absolutely essential constituent of the nucleus 
of every living cell, whether plant or animal. Nu- 
cleln, Itself, which is the substance nearest to the 
beginning of a new cell, contains as high as ten per 
cent, ©f the element phosphorus. 

"On the other hand, phosphorus is the most lim- 



iMORE PROBLEMS 127' 

ited of all the plant food elements, measured by 
supply and demand and circulation. 

"What Is phosphoric acid? Well, the professor 
of chemistry says it is a compound containing three 
atoms of hydrogen, one of phosphorus, and four of 
oxygen. It Is a syrupy liquid and one of the strong- 
est mineral acids. In concentrated form It Is as caus- 
tic as oil of vitriol. Why, here you have a Century 
dictionary. That should tell what phosphoric acid 
is. This Is what the Century says : 

" 'It Is a colorless oderless syrup, with an in- 
tensely sour taste. It is tribasic, forming three dis- 
tinct classes of metallic salts. The three atoms of 
hydrogen may in like manner be replaced by alcohol 
radicles, forming acid and neutral ethers. Phos- 
phoric acid is used In medicine as a tonic' 

"That," continued Percy, "Is the complete defin- 
ition as given by the Century dictionary as to 
what phosphoric acid is, and I note that this is the 
latest edition of the Century, copyrighted in 1902." 

"We bought it less than a month ago," said Mrs. 
Thornton. "We can have so few books that we 
thought the Century would be a pretty good library 
in itself; Mr. Thornton has had too little time to 
use it much as yet." 

"Well, even if I had used It," said Mr. Thorn- 
ton, "you see there are five volumes before Fd get 
to the P's. But, joking aside, I don't get much out 
of that definition except that phosphoric acid is a 
sour liquid and is used in medicine." 

"The definition is entirely correct," said Percy. 
"Any text on chemistry will give you a very similar 
definition, and your physician and druggist will give 
you the same information." 

"Well, I know the fertilizer agents claim to sell 
phosphoric acid in two-hundred-pound bags which 
wouldn't hold any kind of liquid." 



128 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"True," replied Percy, "and I consider it a shame 
that the farm boy who goes to the high school or col- 
lege and Is there taught exactly what phosphoric 
acid Is must, when he returns to the farm, try to 
read bulletins from his agricultural experiment sta- 
tion in which the term 'phosphoric acid' is used for 
and what it is not. At the state agricultural college, 
the professor of chemistry correctly teaches the 
farm boy that phosphoric acid Is a liquid compound 
containing three atoms of hydrogen, one of phos- 
phorus, and four of oxygen in the molecule; and 
then the same professor, as an experiment station in- 
vestigator, goes to the farmers' Institutes and Incor- 
rectly teaches the same boy's father that phosphoric 
acid is a solid compound containing two atoms of 
phosphorus and five atoms of oxygen in the mole- 
cule." 

"But why do they continue to teach such confu- 
sion?" 

"Well, Sir, if they know, they never tell. In some 
manner this misuse of the name was begun, and 
every year doubles the difficulty of stopping it." 

"Like the man that was too lazy to stop work 
when he had once begun," remarked Mr. Thorn- 
ton. 

"Yes," said Percy, "but It Is true that some of the 
States have adopted the practice of reporting analy- 
ses of soils and fertilizers on the basis of nitrogen 
instead of ammonia; and, in the Corn Belt States, 
phosphorus and potassium are the terms used to a 
large extent Instead of 'phosphoric acid,' and pot- 
ash. The agricultural press is greatly assisting in 
bringing about the adoption of the simpler system, 
and the laws of some States now require that the 
percentages of the actual plant food elements, as 
nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, shall be guar- 
anteed in fertilizers offered for sale. It is one of 



MORE PROBLEMS 129 

those questions that are never settled until they are 
settled right; and it is only a question of time until 
the simple element basis will be used throughout the 
United States, or at least in the Central and West- 
ern States. 

"The so-called 'phosphoric acid' of the fertilizer 
agent is a compound whose molecule contains two 
atoms of phosphorus and five atoms of oxygen; and, 
since the atomic weight of phosphorus is thirty-one 
and that of oxygen sixteen, this compound contains 
sixty-two parts of phosphorus and eighty parts of 
oxygen. In other words, this 'phosphoric acid', 
falsely so-called, contains a trifle less than forty-four 
per cent, of the actual element phosphorus." 

"Is the bone phosphate of lime that the agents 
talk about the same as the 'phosphoric acid'?" asked 
Mr. Thornton. 

"No, by 'bone phosphate of lime', which is often 
abbreviated B. P. L., is meant tricalcium phosphate, 
a compound which contains exactly twenty per cent, 
of phosphorus. Thus, you can always divide the 
guaranteed percentage of 'bone phosphate of lime' 
by five, and the result will be the per cent, of phos- 
phorus. 

"As stated in your Century dictionary, true phos- 
phoric acid forms three distinct classes of salts, be- 
cause either one, two, or all of the three hydrogen 
atoms may be replaced by a metallic element. Thus, 
we have phosphoric acid itself containing the three 
hydrogen atoms, one phosphorus atom, and four 
oxygen atoms. This might be called trihydrogen 
phosphate (H3P04). Now if one of the hydrogen 
atoms is replaced by one potassium atom, we have 
potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4) ; with 
two potassium atoms and one hydrogen, we have di- 
potassium hydrogen phosphate (K2HPO4) ; and If 
all hydrogen is replaced by potassium the compound 



130 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

is tripotasslum phosphate (K3P04). To make simi- 
lar salts with two-handed metallic elements, like cal- 
cium or magnesium, we need to start with two mole- 
cules of phosphoric acid, H6(P04)2; because each 
atom of calcium will replace two hydrogen atoms. 
Thus we havemonocalciumphosphate, CaH4(P04)2, 
dicalcium phosphate, Ca2H2(P04)2, and tricalcium 
phosphate, Ca3(P04)2. It goes without saying that 
monocalcium phosphate contains four atoms of hy- 
drogen and that dicalcium phosphate contains two 
hydrogen atoms. By knowing the atomic weights 
(40 for calcium, 31 for phosphorus, and 16 for oxy- 
gen), it is easy to compute that the molecule of tri- 
calcium phosphate weighs 310, of which 62 is phos- 
phorus. This is exactly one-fifth, or twenty per cent. 
This compound you will remember is sometimes call- 
ed 'bone phosphate of lime'. It is also called simply 
'bone phosphate'; because it is the phosphorus com- 
pound contained in bones. It is sometimes called lime 
phosphate, although it contains no lime in the true 
sense, for it has no power to neutralize acid soils, 
except when the phosphorus is taken up by plants 
more rapidly than the calcium, which in such case 
might remain in the soil to act as a base to neutralize 
soil acids; but even then the effect of the small 
amount of calcium thus liberated from the phos- 
phate would be very insignificant compared with a 
liberal application of ground limestone." 

"Well," said Mr. Thornton stretching himself, 
"orange phosphate is my favorite drink but I fear 
some of these phosphates you have just been giving 
me are too concentrated. I ought to have the dose 
diluted; but I like the taste of it, and if you'll write 
a book along this line, in this plain way just about 
as you have been giving it to me straight for almost 
twelve hours, I tell you I'll read it over till I learn to 
understand it a heap better than I do now." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Closer to Mother Earth 

THE following day Percy collected soil sam- 
ples to represent the common type of soil 
on the farm. In the main the land was 
nearly level and very uniform, although 
here and there were small areas which 
varied from the main type, and in places 
the variation was marked. Percy and his host de- 
voted the entire day to an examination of the soils of 
the farm and the collection of the samples. 

"The prevailing soil type is what would be called 
a loam," said Percy, "and a single set of composite 
samples will fairly represent at least three-fourths of 
the land on this farm. 

"It seems to me that it is enough for the present 
to sample this prevailing type, and later, if you de- 
sire, you could collect samples of the minor types, of 
which there are at least three that are quite distinct. 

"A loam soil is one that includes a fair proportion 
of the sev^eral groups of soil materials, including silt, 
clay, and sand." 

"What is silt?" asked Mr. Thornton. 

"Silt consists of the soil particles which are finer 
than sand, — too small in fact to be felt as soil grains 
by rubbing between the fingers, and yet it is distinctly 
granular, while clay is a mere plastic or sticky mass 
like dough. What are commonly called clay soils 
consist largely of silt, but contain enough true clay 
to bind the silt into a stiff mass. In the main such 
soils are silt loams, but when deficient in organic mat- 
ter they are yellow in color as a rule, and all such ma- 
terial is usually called clay by the farmers." 

131 



132 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"Well, I had no Idea that it would take us a whole 
day to get enough dirt for an analysis," remarked 
Mr. Thornton, as they were collecting the samples 
late in the afternoon. "Five minutes would have 
been plenty of time for me, before I saw the holes 
you've bored today." 

"The fact is," replied Percy, "that the most diffi- 
cult work of the soil investigator is to collect the sam- 
ples. Of course any one could fill these little bags 
with soil in five minutes, but the question is, what 
would the soil represent? It may represent little 
more than the hole it came out of, as would be the 
case where the soil had been disturbed by burrowing 
animals, or modified by surface accumulations, as 
where a stack may sometime have been burned. In 
the one case the subsoil may have been brought up 
and mixed with the surface, and in the other the min- 
eral constituents taken from forty acres in a crop of 
clover may have been returned to one-tenth of an 
acre." 

"Certainly such things have occurred on many 
farms," agreed Mr. Thornton, "and they may have 
occurred on this farm for all any one knows." 

"Eighty tons of clover hay," continued Percy, after 
making a few computations, "would contain 400 
pounds of phosphorus, 2400 pounds of potassium, 
620 pounds of magnesium, and 2340 pounds of cal- 
cium." 

"I don't see how you keep all those figures in your 
head, Mr. Johnston." 

"How many pounds are there in a ton of hay?" 
asked Percy. 

"Two thousand." 

"How many pounds in a bushel of oats?" 

"Thirty in Virginia, but thirty-two in Carolina." 

"How many in a bushel of wheat?" 
, "Sixty." 



CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH 133 

'^Corn?" 

"Fifty-six pounds of shelled corn, or seventy 
pounds of ears." 

"Potatoes?" 

"Fifty-six pounds, — both kinds the same, but most 
States require sixty pounds for the Irish potatoes." 

Percy laughed. "You see," he said, "you have 
more figures in your head than I have in mine. You 
have mentioned twice as many right here, without a 
moment's hesitation, as I try to remember for the 
plant food contained in clover. I like to keep in mind 
the requirements of large crops, such as it is possible 
to raise under our climatic conditions if we will pro- 
vide the stuff the crops are made of, so far as we need 
to, and do the farm work as it should be done. I 
never try to remember how much plant food is re- 
quired for twenty-two bushels of corn per acre, which 
is the average yield of Virginia for the last ten years, 
while an authentic record reports a yield of 239 
bushels from an acre of land in South Carolina. On 
our little farm in Illinois we have one field of sixteen 
acres, which was used for a pasture and feed lot for 
many years by my grandfather and has been thor- 
oughly tile-drained since I was born, that has pro- 
duced as high as 2015 bushels of corn in one season, 
thus making an average of 126 bushels per acre. 

"What I try to remember is the plant food require- 
ments for such crops as we ought to try to raise, if we 
do what ought to be done. I try to remember the 
plant food required for a hundred-bushel crop of 
corn, a hundred-bushel crop of oats, a fifty-bushel 
crop of wheat, and four tons of clover hay. It is an 
easy matter to divide these amounts by two, as I have 
really been doing here in the East where it is hard 
for people to think in terms of such crops as these 
lands ought to be made to produce. 

"The requirements of the clover crop I certainly 



134 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

want to have In mind as a part of my little stock of 
ever-ready knowledge. It is not very hard to re- 
member that a four-ton crop of clover hay, which we 
ought to harvest from one acre in two cuttings, con- 
tains : 

1 60 pounds of nitrogen, 

20 pounds of phosphorous, 

120 pounds of potassium, 

31 pounds of magnesium, 

117 pounds of calcium. 

**It is just as easy to think in these terms as in per 
cent, or pounds of butter fat, which I understand is 
the basis on which you sell your cream." 

''Yes, I believe you are right in this matter, Mr. 
Johnston, but I have never been able to see how we 
could apply the figures reported from chemical 
analysis." 

"Neither do I see how any one but a chemist could 
make much use of the reports which the analyst 
usually publishes. Such reports will usually show the 
percentages of moisture and so-called 'phosphoric 
acid', for example. In a sample of clover hay, and per- 
haps the percentages of these constituents In a sample 
of soil; but to connect the requirements of the clover 
crop with the invoice of the soil demand more of a 
mental effort than I was prepared for before I went 
to the agricultural college. 

"On the other hand we were taught in college that 
the plowed soil of an acre of our most common Illi- 
nois corn belt land contains only 1200 pounds of 
phosphorus, and that a hundred-bushel crop of corn 
takes twenty-three pounds of phosphorus out of the 
soil. Furthermore that about one pound of phos- 
phorus per acre is lost annually in drainage water in 
humid regions. By dividing 1200 by 24 it is easy to 



CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH 135 

see that fifty com crops such as we ought to try to 
raise would require as much phosphorus as the pres- 
ent supply in our soil to a depth of about seven inches. 
Of course there is some phosphorus below seven 
inches, but it is the plowed soil we must depend upon 
to a very large extent. The oldest agricultural experi- 
ment station in the world is at Rothamsted, England. 
On two plots of ground in the same field where 
wheat has been grown every year for sixty years, the 
soil below the plow line has practically the same com- 
position, but on one plot the average yield for the last 
fifty years has been thirteen bushels per acre, while 
on the other the yield of wheat has averaged thirty- 
seven bushels for the same fifty years." 

"The same kind of wheat?" inquired Mr. Thorn- 
ton. 

"Yes, and great care has always been taken to have 
these two plots treated alike in all respects, save one." 

"And what was that?" 

"Plant food was regularly incorporated with the 
plowed soil of the high-yielding plot." 

"You mean that farm manure was used?" 

"No, not a pound of farm manure has been used 
on that plot for more than sixty years ; and, further- 
more, the two plots were very much alike at the be- 
ginning; but, to the high-yielding plot, nitrogen, phos- 
phorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and sulfur 
have all been applied in suitable compounds every 
year." 

"That is to say," observed Mr. Thornton, "that 
the land itself has produced thirteen bushels of wheat 
per acre and the plant food applied has produced 
twenty-four bushels, making the total yield thirty- 
seven bushels on the fertilized land." 

"That is certainly a fair way to state it," replied 
Percy. 

"Well, that sounds as though something might be 



136 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

done with run-down lands. About what part of 
the twenty-four bushels increase would it take to pay 
for the fertilizers?" 

"About 150 per cent, of it," Percy replied. 

"One hundred and fifty per cent. ! Why, you can't 
have more than a hundred per cent, of anything." 

"Oh, yes, you can. The twenty-four bushels are 
one hundred per cent, of what the fertilizers pro- 
duced, and the land itself increased this by fifty per 
cent., so that the fertilized land produced one hun- 
dred and fifty per cent, of the increase from the plant 
food applied." 

"Well, that's too much college mathematics for 
me; but do you mean to say that it would take the 
whole thirty-seven bushels to pay for the plant food 
that produced the increase of twenty-four bushels?" 

"That is exactly what I mean. I see that you do 
not like percentage any better than I do. Really the 
acre is the best agricultural unit. We buy and 
sell the land itself by the acre; we report crop yields 
at so many bushels or tons per acre; we apply man- 
ure at so many loads or tons per acre; we apply so 
many hundred pounds of fertilizer per acre; sow 
our wheat and oats at so many pecks or bushels per 
acre; and we ought to know the invoice of plant 
food in the plowed soil of an acre and the amounts 
carried off in the crops removed from an acre. 

"Now, referring again to these figures from the 
forty acres of clover at two tons per acre. If the 
eighty tons were burned and the ashes mixed with 
the surface soil on a tenth of an acre the increase 
per acre would be as follows : 

4,000 pounds of phosphorus 

24,000 pounds of potassium 

6,200 pounds of magnesium 

23,400 pounds of calcium. 



CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH 137 

"These, remember, are the amounts per acre that 
would be added to the soil by burning the eighty 
tons of clover on one-tenth of an acre. 

"Now compare these figures with the total 
amounts of the same elements contained in the com- 
mon corn belt prairie soil of Illinois, which are as 
follows : 

1,200 pounds of phosphorus 

35,000 pounds of potassium 

8,600 pounds of magnesium 

15,400 pounds of calcium. 

"From these figures you will see that the analysis 
of a single sample of soil collected from a spot of 
ground that had sometime received such an addition 
as this would be positively worse than worthless, be- 
cause it would give false information, and that is 
much worse than no information. 

"The methods of chemical analysis have been de- 
veloped to a high degree of accuracy, and it is not a 
difficult matter to find a chemist who can make a 
correct analysis of the sample placed in his hands; 
but the chief difficulties lie, first, in securing samples 
of soil that will truly represent the type or types of 
soil on the farm; and, second, in the interpretation 
of the results of analysis with reference to the adop- 
tion of methods of soil improvement." 

"Is the report of the analysis as confusing with 
respect to other elements as with potassium and 
phosphorus, which, I understand, are likely to be re- 
ported in terms of potash and a 'phosphoric acid' 
that is not true phosphoric acid?" 

"Still worse," Percy replied. "The calcium is 
commonly reported in terms of lime, or, as you 
would say, quick lime ; and yet the soil may be an 
acid soil, like yours, and contain no lime whatever, 



138 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

neither as quicklime nor limestone. I have seen an 
analysis reporting half a per cent, of calcium oxid, 
which would make five tons of quicklime in the 
plowed soil of an acre; whereas the soil not only 
contained no lime whatever, but was so acid that it 
needed five tons of ground limestone per acre to 
correct the acidity. 

"The trouble is that when the chemist found cal- 
cium in the soil existing in the form of acid silicate, 
or calcium hydrogen silicate, he reported calcium 
oxid, or lime, in his analytical statement, assuming 
apparently that the farmer would understand that 
the analytical statement did not mean what it said." 

"But some soils do contain lime, do they not?" 

"Some soils contain limestone," replied Percy, 
"and the analysis of such a soil should report the 
amount of limestone, or calcium carbonate, based 
upon the actual determination of carbonate carbon 
or carbon dioxid, which is a true measure of the 
basic property of the soil, even though the lime- 
stone may be somewhat magnesian in character." 

For a set of soil samples, Percy collected soil 
from three different strata. The first sample repre- 
sented the surface stratum from the top to six and 
two-third inches; the second sample represented the 
subsurface stratum from six and two-thirds to twen- 
ty inches; and the third sample represented the sub- 
soil from twenty to forty inches, each sample being 
a composite of about twenty borings. 

In collecting these the hole was bored to six and 
two-third inches and somewhat enlarged by scraping 
up and down with the auger, all of the soil being 
put into a numbered bag. Then, the hole was ex- 
tended and the subsurface boring removed without 
touching the surface soil. This boring to a depth of 
twenty inches was put into a second bag. The hole 
was then enlarged to the twenty-inch depth but the 



CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH 139 

additional soil removed was dicarded as a mixture 
of the surface and subsurface strata. Finally the 
hole was extended to the forty-inch depth and the 
subsoil from one groove of the auger was put into a 
third bag. In this manner about an equal quantity 
of soil was bagged from each stratum; and twenty 
such borings taken with an auger about one inch in 
diameter make a sufficient quantity to furnish to the 
chemist. 

"Of course the surface soil is by far the most im- 
portant," Percy explained. "It represents just about 
the depth of earth that is turned by the plow in good 
farming on normal soils; and it weighs about two 
million pounds per acre. The subsurface stratum 
extending from six and two-thirds to twenty inches 
in depth represents the practical limit of subsoiling; 
and this stratum weighs about four million pounds; 
while the subsoil stratum weighs about six million 
pounds, where the soil is normal, such as loam, silt 
loam, clay loam, or sandy loam. Pure sand soil 
weighs about one-fourth more, while pure peat soil 
weighs only half as much as normal soil." 

"I wish you would tell me," said Mr. Thornton, 
"what the fertilizers cost that have been used on 
that Rothamsted wheat field." 

"The annual application of nitrogen has been one 
hundred twenty-nine pounds per acre," said Percy. 
"What will it cost?" 

"Well, at twenty cents a pound, it would cost 
$25.80," was Mr. Thornton's reply after he had 
figured a moment. "But why didn't they grow clover 
and get the nitrogen from the air?" 

"For two reasons," replied Percy. "First, when 
those classic experiments were begun by Sir John 
Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert in 1844, it was not 
known that clover could secure the free nitrogen 
from the air; and, second, the experiment was de- 



I40 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

signed to discover for certain whether wheat must be 
supplied with combined nitrogen, by ascertaining the 
actual effect upon the yield of wheat of the nitrogen 
applied." 

"And what was the actual effect of the nitrogen?" 
questioned Mr. Thornton. "How much did the 
wheat yield when they left out the nitrogen and ap- 
plied all the other elements?" 

"Only fifteen bushels," was the reply. 

"Only fifteen bushels ! Only two bushels Increase 
for all the other elements, phosphorus, potassium, 
magnesium, and calcium, — and I remember you said 
that sulfur also was appHed. Why didn't they leave 
off all these other elements, and just use the nitrogen 
alone?" 

"They did on another plot in the same field." 

"Oh, they did do that? What was the yield on that 
plot?" 

"Only twenty bushels." 

"Only twenty bushels ! Well, that's mighty queer. 
How do you account for that?" 

"Does Mrs. Thornton sometimes make dough out 
of flour and milk?" asked Percy. 

"Another Yankee question, eh?" said Mr. Thorn- 
ton. "I told my wife once that I wished she could 
make the bread my mother used to make ; and she said 
she wished I could make the dough her father used to 
make. Yes, my wife makes dough, a good deal more 
than I do, and she makes it of flour and milk, when 
we aren't reduced to corn meal and water." 

"Can she make dough of flour alone?" continued 
Percy. 

"No," replied Mr. Thornton. 

"Nor of milk alone?" 

"No." 

"Well, wheat cannot be made of nitrogen alone, 
nor can it be made without nitrogen. On Broadbalk 



CLOSER TO MOTHER EARTH 141 

field at Rothamsted, where the wheat is grown, the 
soil is most deficient in the element nitrogen. In other 
words, nitrogen is the limiting element for wheat on 
that soil; and practically no increase can be made in 
the yield of wheat unless nitrogen is added. How- 
ever, some other elements are not furnished by this 
soil in sufficient amount for the largest yield of wheat, 
and these place their limitation upon the crop at 
twenty bushels. To remove this second limitation re- 
quires that another element, such as phosphorus, 
shall be supplied *in larger amount than is annually 
liberated in the soil under the system of farming 
practiced." 

"Yes, I see that," said Mr. Thornton, "it's like 
eating pancakes and honey; the more cakes you have 
the more honey you want. I think I can almost see 
my way through in this matter; we are to correct the 
acid with limestone, to work the legumes for nia'O- 
gen, and turn under everything we can to increase the 
organic matter, and if we find that the soil won't fur- 
nish enough phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, or 
calcium, even with the help of the decaying organic 
matter to liberate them, why then it is up to us to in- 
crease the supply of those elements." 

"You must remember that the calcium will be sup- 
plied in the limestone;" cautioned Percy. "And, if 
you use magnesian limestone, you will thus supply 
both calcium and magnesium. Keep in mind that 
magnesian only means that the limestone contains 
some magnesium and that it is not a pure calcium 
carbonate. The purest magnesian limestone consists 
of a double carbonate of calcium and magnesium, 
called dolomite." 

"But I have heard that magnesian lime is bad for 
soils," said Mr. Thornton. 

"That is true," Percy replied, "and so is ordinary 
lime bad for soils. The Germans say: 'Lime makes 



142 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

the fathers rich but the children poor.' The Enghsh 
saying is: 

'Lime and lime without manure 

Will make both farm and farmer poor.' 

"Both of these national proverbs are correct for 
common every-day lime ; but you know, do you not, 
that limestone soils are usually very good and very 
durable soils?" 

"That's what I've always heard," replied Mr. 
Thornton. 

"Well, there is no danger whatever from using too 
much limestone; and all the information thus far se- 
cured shows that magnesian limestone is even better 
than the pure calcium limestone. I know two Illinois 
farmers who are using large quantities of ground 
magnesian limestone, and one of them had applied as 
much as twenty tons per acre. On that land his corn 
crop was good for eighty bushels per acre this year. 
Of course that heavy application was more than was 
needed, but initial applications of four or five tons 
are very satisfactory, and these should be followed by 
about two tons per acre every four to six years." 

Mr. Thornton took his guest to Blairvillc that 
evening as they had planned and he assured Percy that 
should he decide to purchase land in that section 
they would let him have three hundred acres of their 
land at ten dollars an acre. 

"I will let you know after I get the samples an- 
alyzed for you," said Percy. The price is low enough 
and the location Ideal, but still I want to have the In- 
voice before I buy the goods. I will write you about 
sending the samples to the chemist after I hear from 
some I sent him from Montplain." 



CHAPTER XIX 

From Richmond to Washington 

THE next day Percy spent a few hours at 
the State Capitol in Richmond, where 
he found the records of the State of 
much interest. 

Thus he found that in practically 
every county there was more or less 
land owned by the commonwealth, because of its 
complete abandonment by former owners, and the 
failure of any one to buy when sold by the state for 
taxes. 

Under such conditions the title to the land re- 
turns to the State, and after two years it may be 
sold by the State to any one desiring to purchase 
and the former owner has no further right of re- 
demption. Some of these lands which are owned 
by the State, and on which the State has received no 
taxes for many years, are still occupied by their 
former owners or by "squatters," and may continue 
to be so occupied unless the land should be pur- 
chased from the State by some one else who would 
demand full possession. Such purchasers, however, 
are likely to be unpopular residents in the commun- 
ity, if the transaction forces poor people from a 
place they have called home, even though they had 
no legal right to occupy it. 

Percy found that the report of the State Auditor 
showed that the clerk of the court of Powhatan 
county had returned to the State $1.05 "for sales of 
lands purchased by the commonwealth at tax sales," 
while from Prince Edward county the State received 
a similar revenue amounting to $17.39 ^^^ the same 

143 



144 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

year. The total revenue to the commonwealth from 
this source amounted to $667.85 for the year. Con- 
trasted with this was the revenue from "Redemption 
of Land," amounting to $27,436.38, suggesting 
something of the struggle of the man to retain pos- 
session of his home before it becomes legally possi- 
ble for another to take It from him beyond redemp- 
tion. 

According to the records about a million acres of 
land are owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia 
alone. 

Percy decided to go to Washington to learn what 
definite information he might obtain from the 
United States Department of Agriculture. On the 
train for Washington he found himself sitting be- 
side a Virginia farmer. 

"These lands remind me of our Western prai- 
ries," Percy remarked. "You have some extensive 
areas of level or gently undulating uplands." 

"They don't remind me of the Western prairies, 
I can tell you," was the reply. "I am a Westerner 
myself, or I was until eight years ago. These lands 
look alright from the train when the crops are all 
off, but I find that every patch of the earth's surface 
doesn't always make a good farm. Why you can 
go from Danville, Illinois, to Omaha, Nebraska, 
and stop anywhere in the darkest night and you're 
mighty near sure to light on a good farm where one 
acre Is worth ten of this land along here." 

"About what is this land worth?" asked Percy. 

"Well, I thought six hundred acres of it was 
worth $5,000 about eight years ago, especially as 
the buildings on the place were in good repair and 
couldn't be built today for less than $6,000; but 
right now I think I paid a plenty for my land. It's 
just back a few miles at the station where I got on." 

"How far is that from Washington?" 



RICHMOND TO WASHINGTON 145 

"About fifteen miles, I reckon, as the crow flies. 
My boy has a telescope his uncle sent him and we can 
see the Monument on a clear day." 

"What monument?" asked Percy. 

"Why, Washington's monument. Haven't you 
ever been to Washington?" 

"No, this is my first visit. I am really thinking 
of buying a farm somewhere here in the East. I 
have been in Richmond and learned a great deal 
from the state reports, and I thought I might get 
more information from the Department of Agricul- 
ture in Washington." 

"Perhaps," said the man, "but my advice is to 
keep in mind that there is a difference between buy- 
ing land and buying a farm. I've got land to sell, 
by the way. I thought I'd need it all when I 
bought, but I can see now that I'll not need more'n 
half of it at the most; so, if you want two or three 
hundred acres of this kind of land right close here 
where you kind o' neighbor with the senators and 
other upper tens, and run back and forth from the 
City in an hour or so, why I think I can accommo- 
date you. My name is Sunderland, J. R. Sunder- 
land, and you'll find me at home any day." 

"How much would you sell part of your land 
for?" inquired Percy. 

"Well, I'd kind o' hate to take less than ten dol- 
lars an acre for it; but I think we can make a deal 
alright if you like the location." 



A 



at once." 



CHAPTER XX. 

A Lesson in Optimism 

BOUT nine o'clock the day following 
Percy's arrival in Washington he sent 
his card into the office of the Secretary 
of Agriculture. 

"Just step this way," said the boy on 
his return. "The Secretary will see you 



A gentleman who appeared to be sixty, but was 
really several years older, arose from his desk and 
greeted Percy very kindly. 

'T see you are from Illinois, Mr. Johnston. I am 
an Iowa man myself, and I am always glad to see 
any one from the corn belt. Do you know we are 
going to beat the records this year? It is wonderful 
what crops we grow in this country, and they are get- 
ting better every year. We are growing more than 
two-thirds of the entire corn crop of the globe, right 
here in these United States. Yes, Sir, and we are 
just beginning to grow corn; and corn is only one of 
our important agricultural products. Do you know 
that eighty-six per cent, of all the raw materials used 
in all the manufactured products of this country come 
from the farms of the United State; yes. Sir, eighty- 
six per cent. 

"Now, what can I do for you? I am very glad 
you called, and I will be glad to serve you in any way 
you desire. By the way, how is the corn turning out 
in your part of Illinois? Bumper crop, I have no 
doubt." 

"I think so," said Percy, "after seeing the crops 
here in the East." 

146 



A LESSON IN OPTIMISM 147 

'That's what I thought," continued the Secretary. 
*'A bumper crop, the biggest we ever raised. Oh, 
they don't know how to raise corn here In the East. 
They just grow corn, corn, corn, year after year; and 
that will get any land out of fix. I found that out 
years ago In Iowa. I am a farmer myself, as I sup- 
pose you know. I found you couldn't grow corn on 
the same land all the time. But just rotate the crops; 
put clover in the rotation ; and then your ground will 
make corn again, as good as ever." 

"But I understand that clover refuses to grow on 
most of this eastern land," said Percy. 

"Oh, nonsense. They don't sow It. I tell you they 
don't sow It, and they don't know how to raise It. It 
takes a little manure sometimes to start It, but It will 
grow all right If they would only give It half a chance. 
Why, for years the Iowa farmers said blue grass 
wouldn't grow In Iowa. Yes, Sir, they just knew It 
wouldn't grow there; and then I showed them that 
blue grass was actually growing in Iowa, — actually 
growing along the roadsides almost everywhere, — 
blue grass that would pasture a steer to the acre — just 
came in of Itself without being seeded. No, I tell you 
they don't sow clover down here. They just say it 
won't grow and keep right on planting corn, corn, 
corn, until the corn crop amounts to nothing, and then 
they let the land grow up in brush." 

"Now, I do not wish to take up more of your 
time," said Percy, "for I know how busy a man you 
must be, but I am thinking of buying a farm, or some 
land, here in the East and have come to you for In- 
formation. We have a small farm in Illinois and 
land is rather too high-priced there to think of buy- 
ing more ; but I thought I could sell at a good price, 
and buy a much larger farm here In the East with part 
of the money and still have enough left to build It up 
with; and, with the high price of all kinds of farm 



hs the story of the soil 

produce here, we ought to make It pay." 

'Tou can do it," said the Secretary. "No doubt 
of it. Any land that ever was any good Is all right 
yet if you'll grow clover, and you can start that with 
a little manure If you need It. I have done It In Iowa, 
and I know what I am talking about. 

"Now my Bureau of Soils can give you just the in- 
formation you want. We are making a soil survey of 
the United States, and we have soil maps of several 
counties right here in Maryland. You can take that 
map and pick out any kind of land you want, — up- 
land or bottom land, — sandy soil, clay soil, loam, silt 
loam, or anything you want." 



< 



CHAPTER XXI 

In the Office of the Chief 

SHOW this gentleman to the Bureau of 
Soils," said the Secretary to the boy who 
came as he pushed a button. 
"All the world lov^es an optimist," said 
Percy to himself as he followed the boy 
to another office where he met the Chief 
of the Bureau of Soils, who kindly furnished him 
with copies of the soil maps of several counties, in- 
cluding two in Maryland, Prince George, which ad- 
joins the District of Columbia, and St. Mary county, 
which almost adjoins Prince George on the South. 

These maps were accompanied by extensive re- 
ports describing In some detail the agricultural his- 
tory of the counties and the general observations that 
had been made by the soil surveyors. 

"I desire to learn as much as I can regarding the 
most common upland soils," Percy explained. "Not 
the rough or broken land, but the level or undulating 
lands which are best suited for cultivation. I am 
sure these maps and reports will be a very great 
help to me." 

"I think you will find just what you are looking 
for," said the Chief. "You can spread the maps 
out on the table there and let me know if I can be of 
any assistance. You see the legend on the margin 
gives you the name of every soil type, and the soils 
are fully described in the reports. One of the most 
common uplands soils In southern Prince George 
county is the Leonardtown loam, and this type is 
also the most extensive soil type in St. Mary county. 
The same type Is found In Virginia to some extent. 

149 



I50 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

While the soil has been run down by improper meth- 
ods of culture, it has a very good mechanical compo- 
sition and is really an excellent soil; but it needs crop 
rotation and more thorough cultivation to bring it 
back into a high state of fertility. The farmers are 
slow to take up advanced methods here in the East. 
We have told them what they ought to do, but 
they keep right on in the same old rut." 

For two hours Percy buried himself with the 
maps and reports. Finally the Chief came from his 
inner office, and finding Percy still there asked if he 
had found such information as he desired. 

"I find much of interest and value, but I do not find 
any complete invoice of the plant food contained in 
these different kinds of soil." 

You mean an ultimate chemical analysis of the 
soil?" asked the Chief. 

*'Yes, a chemical analysis to ascertain the absolute 
amount of plant food in the soil. I think of it as an 
invoice; but I see that you do not report any such 
analyses." 

*'No, we do not," answered the Chief. "We 
have been investigating the mechanical compo- 
sition of soils, the chemistry of the soil solution, and 
the adaptation of crop to soil. We find that farmers 
are not growing the crops they should grow; namely, 
the crops to which their soils are best adapted. For 
example, they try to grow corn on land that is not 
adapted to corn." 

'*It seems to me," said Percy, **that our farmers 
are always trying to find a crop that is adapted to 
their soil. Down in 'Egypt', which covers about 
one-third of Illinois, the farmers once raised so 
much corn that the people from the swampy prairie 
went down there to buy corn, and hence the name 
'Egypt' became applied to Southern Illionis. But 
there came a time when the soil refused to grow 



IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF 1 5 1 

such crops of corn; the farmers then found that 
wheat was adapted to the soil. Later the wheat 
yields decreased until the crop became unprofitable; 
and the farmers sought for another crop adapted to 
a still more depleted soil. Timothy was selected, 
and for many years it proved a profitable crop; but 
of late years timothy likewise has decreased in yield 
until there must be another change; and now whole 
sections of Egypt are growing redtop as the only 
profitable crop. After red top, then what? I don't 
know, but it looks as though it would be sprouts and 
scrub brush, and final land abandonment, a repeti- 
tion of the history of these old lands of Virginia 
and Maryland." 

"Well, can't they grow corn after red top?" asked 
the Chief. 

"Many of them try it many times," replied 
Percy," and the yield is about twenty bushels per 
acre, whereas the virgin soil easily produced sixty to 
eighty bushels." 

"And they can't grow wheat as they once did?" 

"No, wheat after timothy or red top now yields 
from five to twelve bushels per acre, while they once 
grew twenty to thirty bushels of wheat per acre 
year after year." 

"If they rotate their crops, they would probably 
yield as well as ever," said the Chief. 

"No, that, too, has been tried," replied Percy. 
"The Illinois Experiment Station has practiced a 
four-year rotation of corn, cowpeas, wheat, and 
clover on an experiment field on the common prairie 
soil down in 'Egypt,' and the average yield of 
wheat has been only twelve bushels per acre during 
the last four years ; but when the legume crops were 
plowed under and limestone and phosphorus applied, 
the average yield during the same four years was 
twenty-seven bushels per acre." 



152 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

^'Probably the increase was all produced by the 
green manure,'' suggested the Chief. "Organic mat- 
ter has a great influence on the control of the mois- 
ture supply." 

"That was tested," said Percy. "The green 
manure alone increased the average yield to only 
fourteen bushels while the green manure and lime- 
stone together raised the average wheat yield to 
nineteen bushels, the further increase to twenty-seven 
bushels having been produced by the addition of 
phosphorus." 

"Well, Sir," said the Chief, "we have made both 
extensive and intensiv^e investigations concerning the 
chemistry of the soil solution by very delicate and 
sensitive methods of analysis we have developed, and 
we have also conducted culture experiments for twen- 
ty-day periods with wheat seedlings in the water ex- 
tract of soils from all parts of the United States, and 
the results we have obtained have changed the 
thought of the world as to the cause of the infertility 
of soils." 

"But you have not made analyses for total plant 
food in the soils or conducted actual field experiments 
with crops grown to maturity?" asked Percy. 

"No, we have not done that," answered the Chief. 
"Those are old methods of investigation which have 
been tried for many years and yet no chemist can tell 
in advance what will be the effect of a given fertilizer 
upon a given crop on a given soil." 

"That is true," said Percy, *'but neither can any 
merchant tell in advance just what effect will be pro- 
duced on the next day's business by the addition of a 
given number of a given kind of shoes to a given 
stock on his shelves. There are many factors in- 
volved in both cases." 

"Yes, you are right in that," said the Chief, "we 
are just beginning to understand the chemistry of the 



IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF 153 

soil, and we hope soon to have very complete proof 
of the advanced Ideas we already have concerning the 
causes of the fertility and Infertility of soils." 

"Referring to the specific case of the Leonardtown 
loam of Maryland," said Percy, "I find the following 
statement on page 33 of the Report of the Field 
Operations of the Bureau of Soils for 1900. After 
describing the Norfolk loam of St. Mary County, 
the writer says : 

" 'The Leonardtown loam is a very much heavier 
type of soil. It covers about forty-one per cent, of 
St. Mary County. The soil Is a yellow silty soil, re- 
sembling loess in texture, underlaid by a clay subsoil 
with layers or pockets of sand. This soil has been 
cultivated for upward of two hundred years, but It is 
now little valued and Is covered with oak and pine 
over much of its area. It Is worth from $1 to $3 per 
acre. The cultivated areas produce small crops of 
corn, wheat, and an Inferior grade of tobacco.' " 

"The generally low estimation In which this land 
is held Is probably wholly unjustified," replied the 
Chief. "There are two or three farms In the area 
which, under a high state of cultivation with Intelli- 
gent methods, will produce from twenty to thirty 
bushels of wheat per acre and corresponding crops of 
corn. Those farmers are a credit to the country. 
They furnish the towns with good milk and butter 
and vegetables, and they also help to keep the towns 
clean and sanitary by hauling out the animal excre- 
ments, and other waste and garbage that tend to pol- 
lute the air and water of the village." 

"I can see how that might maintain the fertility of 
those farms," said Percy. "It seems that the general 
condition of this kind of land Is about the same In 
Prince George County. On page 45 of the 1901 
Report of the Field Operations of the Bureau of 
Soils, I have noted the following statement : 



154 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

" 'The Leonardtown loam, covering 45,770 acres 
of the area, Is the nearest approach among the Mary- 
land Coastal Plain Soils to the heavy clays of the 
limestone regions of Western Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania. The surface is generally level and the 
drainage fair. The soil is not adapted to tobacco, 
and has consequently been allowed to grow up to 
scrub forest, so that large portions of it are at present 
uncleared. Such unimproved lands can be bought 
for $1.50 to $5.00 an acre, even within a few miles 
of the District line. The soil has been badly neglected, 
and when cultivated the methods have not been such 
as to promote fertility. When properly handled, as 
it is in a few places, good yields of wheat, corn and 
grass are obtained.' " 

'That's right," said the Chief, "exactly right. 
Upon the whole it is one of the most promising soils 
of the locality, although it is not considered so by the 
resident farmers." 

"You mean that it should be handled the same as 
is done by the successful farmers of St. Mary Coun- 
ty?" inquired Percy. 

"Yes, it needs thorough cultivation and the rota- 
tion of crops; and the physical condition of the soil 
needs to be improved by the addition of lime and 
manure, or green crops turned under." 

"I have been looking over some of the other Re- 
ports of Field Operations," said Percy. "I became 
interested in the description of a Virginia soil called 
Porters black loam. I find the following statements 
on page 210 of the Report for 1902: 

" 'The Porters black loam occurs In all the soil 
survey sheets, extending along the top of the main 
portion of the Blue Ridge Mountains In one con- 
tinuous area. This type consists of the broad rolling 
tops and the upper slopes of the main range of the 
Blue Ridge Miountalns. Locally the Porters black 



IN THE OFFICE OF THE CHIEF 1 5 5 

loam Is called "black land" and ''pippin" land, the 
latter term being applied because, of all the soils of 
the area, it is pre-eminently adapted to the Newtown 
and Albermarle Pippin. This black land has long 
been recognized as the most fertile of the mountain 
soils. It can be worked year after year without ap- 
parent impairment of its fertility. Wheat winter kills, 
the loose soils heaving badly under influence of frost. 
The areas lie at too high elevations for corn. Oats 
do well, making large yields. Irish potatoes, even un- 
der ordinary culture, will yield from two hundred to 
three hundred bushels per acre. It seeds in blue grass 
naturally, which affords excellent pasturage. Clover 
and other grasses will also grow luxuriantly upon it. 
The areas occupied by this soil are mostly cleared'." 

''Yes, Sir," said the Chief, "the Porters black loam 
is a fine soil— loose and porous as stated in the Re- 
port. You see it has a good physical condition." 

"There is one other description in this Report for 
1903 that is of special interest to me," said Percy. 
"This relates to a type of soil which the surveyors 
found in the low level areas of prairie land in Mc- 
Lean County, Illinois, and which they have called 
Miami black clay loam. I think we have several 
acres of the same kind of soil on our own little farm. 
I found the following statements on page 787: 

" 'When the first settlers came to McLean county 
they found the areas occupied by the Miami black 
clay loam wet and swampy, and before these areas 
could be brought under cultivation it was necessary 
to remove this excess of moisture. With the excep- 
tion of a few large ditches for outlets, tile drains 
have taken the place of open ditches. Drainage sys- 
tems in some instances have cost as much as $25 an 
acre, but the very productive character of the soil, 
and the increase in the yields fully justify the ex- 
pense. There are few soils more productive than 



156 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

the Miami black clay loam. Some areas have been 
cropped almost continuously in corn for nearly fifty 
years without much diminution in the yields.' " 

"Now there you are again," said the Chief. 
"Drainage, that's all it needed. You see it's a sim- 
ple matter; and that's what the Leonardtown loam 
needs in places. Give it good drainage and good 
cultivation with a rotation of crops, and you'll get 
results alright." 

"Has the Bureau of Soils tried these methods on 
any of this soil near Washington?" asked Percy. 

"No use," replied the Chief. "We've got the 
scientific facts and besides, as I told you, some few 
farms are kept up in both Prince George and St. 
Mary counties and they are as good demonstrations 
as anyone could want. "Now I suggest that you 
meet some of our scientists." 



CHAPTER XXll 
The Chemist's Laboratory 

THE Chief showed Percy Into the labora 
tories of the Bureau and Introduced him 
to the soil physicist and the soil chemist, 
Percy was greatly Interested In the vari- 
ous lines of work In progress and gladly 
accepted an Invitation to return after 
lunch and become better acquainted with the methods 
of investigation used. 

In the afternoon the physicist showed him how 
the soil water could be removed from an ordinary 
moist soil by centrifugal force, and the chemist was 
growing wheat seedlings In small quantities of this 
water and in water extracts contained In bottles. 
The seedlings were allowed to grow for twenty days 
and then other seedlings were started In the same 
solution and also In fresh solution, and It was very 
apparent that in some cases the wheat grew better 
In the fresh solutions. 

The chemist explained that he also analyzed the 
soil solutions and water extracts from different soils 
and that there was no relation between the crop 
yields and the chemical composition of the soils. 

"But it seems to me," said Percy, "that your 
analysis refers to the plant food dissolved in the 
soil water only at the time when you extract It. How 
long a time does it require to make the extraction?" 

"As a rule we shake the soil with water for three 
minutes and then it takes twenty minutes to separate 
the water from the soil. This gives us the plant 
food in solution and with the addition of more wa- 
ter the nitrates, phosphoric acid, and potash In the 



158 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

soil Immediately dissolve sufficiently to give us a 
nutrient solution of the same concentration as we 
had before. Thus there Is always sufficient plant 
food In the soil so long as there Is any of the origi- 
nal stock. 

"That Is surely quick work," said Percy, "but I 
wonder If the corn plant might not get somewhat 
different results from the soil analysis which It 
makes." 

"How do you mean?" 

"Did you ever plant a field of corn and then cul- 
tivate It and watch It grow with Increasing rapidity, 
until along about the Fourth of July every leaf 
seemed to nod Its appreciation and thanks as you 
stirred the soil; and to show Its gratitude, too, by 
growing about five Inches every twenty-four hours 
when the nights were warm?" 

"No," replied the Chemist, " I have never had 
any experience of that sort. I am devoting my life 
to the more scientific Investigations relating to the 
fundamental laws which underlie these soil fertility 
problems." 

"Well, I was only thinking," Percy continued, 
"that you analyze a fraction of a pound of soil In a 
few minutes, while the corn plant analyzes about a 
ton of soil by a sort of continuous process, which 
covers twenty-four hours every day for about one 
hundred and twenty days, and It takes Into account 
every change In temperature and moisture, the aera- 
tion with any variation produced by cultivation, and 
also the changes brought about by the nitrifying bac- 
teria and all other agencies that promote the decom- 
position of the soil and the liberation of plant food. 
Including the action upon the Insoluble phosphates 
and other minerals of the carbonic acid exhaled by the 
roots of the corn plants, the nitric acid produced by 
the process of nitrification, and the various acids re- 



THE CHEMIST'S LABORATORY 159 

suiting from the decay of organic matter contained 
in the soil." 

"I am very familiar with the literature of the 
whole subject of soil fertility," replied the Chemist, 
"and our theories are being accepted everywhere. I 
have just returned from a lecture tour extending 
from Florida to Michigan, and our ideas and meth- 
ods are being very generally adopted, not only in 
this country but also in Europe." 

"The Chief of the Bureau very kindly permitted 
me to look over the maps and reports relating to the 
soils of Maryland and Virginia," said Percy, "but in 
this literature I found no data as to the amount of 
plant food contained in the various soil types that 
have been found in the surveys. May I ask if the 
Bureau has made any analyses to ascertain the total 
amounts of the different essential plant food elements 
contained in these different soils?" 

"No," the Chemist replied, "a chemical analysis 
gives practically no information concerning the fer- 
tility of the soil. We have made no ultimate analyses 
of soils, although we have used the same methods of 
analysis in a study of the partial composition of the 
soil separates, or particles of different grades, such as 
the sand, the silt, and the clay." 

"And have you also determined the percentages of 
sand, silt, and clay in the soils themselves?" 

"Oh, yes, the physical composition of the soil is a 
matter of very great importance, and this Is always 
determined and reported for every soil. Did you not 
see that in the Reports you examined this morning?" 

"I think I did notice it," Percy replied, "but it is so 
easy for the farmer himself to tell a sandy soil from 
a clay soil that I did not appreciate the value of those 
physical analyses. 

"In any case, I shall be very glad to know what 
results were obtained from the chemical analysii of 



i6o THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

the soil separates to which you referred." 

"Those results are all reported in Bulletin No. 54 
of the Bureau of Soils," said the Chemist, "and I 
have extra copies right here and will be glad to pre- 
sent you with one. And let me give you our bulletin 
22 also. This will enable you to get a clear idea of 
the principles we are developing which are solving 
the soil fertility problems that have completely baffled 
the scientists heretofore." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Mathematics Applied to Agriculture 

PERCY left the Bureau of Soils with a feel- 
ing of deep appreciation for the uniform 
courtesy and kindness that had been ac- 
corded him, but with a firm conviction that 
the laboratory scientists were too far re- 
moved from the actual conditions existing 
in the cultivated field. He sought the quiet of his 
room at the hotel in order to study the bulletins he 
had received. 

Even with his college training he found it difficult 
to form clear mental conceptions of the results of in- 
vestigations reported in the bulletins. Sometimes the 
data were reported in percentages and sometimes in 
parts per million. No reports gave the amounts of 
the element phosphorus ; but P04 was given in some 
places and P2O5 in others. In Bulletin No. 22, the 
potassium and calcium were reported as the elements 
and the nitrogen in terms of N03, while potash 
(K2O), quicklime (CaO), and magnesia (MgO) 
were reported in Bulletin 54. 

By a somewhat complicated mathematical process, 
he finally succeeded in making computations from the 
percentages of the various compounds reported in the 
soil separates and from the percentages of these dif- 
ferent separates contained in the soils themselves and 
from the known weights of normal soils, until he re- 
duced the data to amounts per acre of plowed soil. 
He was especially pleased to find that the essential 
data were at hand not only for both the Leonardtown 
loam and the Porter's black loam, but also for the 
Norfolk loam, which he had learned from one of the 

161 



1^2 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

soil maps was the principal type of soil southwest of 
Blairville on Mr. Thornton's farm ; and, furthermore, 
the Miami black clay loam of Illinois was included. 
Percy knew the black clay loam was a rich soil, for 
the teacher in college had said that the more com- 
mon prairie land and most timber lands were 
much less durable and needed thorough investiga- 
tion at once, while the flat recently drained heavy 
black land could wait a few years if necessary. 

Percy first worked out the data for the Miami 
black clay loam. The chemist had analyzed the soil 
separates for only four constituents, and they showed 
the following amounts per acre of plowed soil to a 
depth of six and two-third inches, averaging two 
million pounds in weight: 

2,970 pounds of phosphorus 

38,500 pounds of potassium 

18,440 pounds of magnesium 

46,200 pounds of calcium 

He then made the computations for the average of 
the Leonardtown loam of St. Mary County, Mary- 
land, with results as follows : 

160 pounds of phosphorus 

18,500 pounds of potassium 

3,480 pounds of magnesium 

1,000 pounds of calcium 

Percy stared at these figures when he brought them 
together for comparison. He then checked up his 
computations to be sure they were right. 

"Almost twenty times as much phosphorus!" he 
said to himself. ''Is it posible? And more than 
forty times as much calcium ! Let me see I It takes 
one hundred and seventeen pounds of calcium for 



MATHEMATICS APPLIED 163 

four tons of clover hay. The total amount In the 
plowed soil of the Leonardtown loam would not be 
sufficient for eight such crops; and six crops of com 
such as we raised one year on our sixteen acres would 
take more phosphorus from the land than is now left 
In the plowed soil of this Leonardtown loam. The 
magnesium is not quite so bad— about one-fifth as 
much as In our black soil, and the potassium Is almost 
one-half as much as we have." 

Percy next turned to the Porters black loam, which 
he had noticed was to be found not many miles from 
Montplain. He thought he might Induce Mr. West 
to drive with him to the upper mountain slope In 
order that they might see that land. His computa- 
tions for the Porters black loam gave the following 
results : 

4,630 pounds of phosphorus 

48,300 pounds of potassium 

12,360 pounds of magnesium 

23,700 pounds of calcium. 

He viewed these figures a moment with evident 
satisfaction. 

''Plenty of everything In this wonderful 'pippin 
land'," he thought. "Big yields reported for every- 
thing suited to that altitude. 'Can be worked year 
after year without apparent impairment of Its fer- 
tility,' so the Report stated. I should think It might, 
especially since clover Is one of the crops grown. 
Both phosphorus and potassium are way above our 
best black land. Magnesium two-thirds and calcium 
one-half of our flat land, but still greater than our 
common prairie, according to the average they gave 
us at college. And no doubt there is plenty of 
magnesian limestone In these mountains which could 
be had If ever needed. The soil surveyor certainly 



1 64 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

did not say too much In praise of the Porters black 
loam, considering that Its physical composition Is 
also alright." 

He worked out the Norfolk loam to see what he 
would get If he accepted Miss Russell's dare. The 
following are the figures: 

6io pounds of phosphorus 

13,200 pounds of potassium 

1,200 pounds of magnesium 

3,430 pounds of calcium 

^'Rather low In everything," said Percy, "com- 
pared with any soil I know that has a good reputa- 
tion. More uniformly poor but not so extremely 
poor as the Leonardtown loam." 

He wished that the nitrogen had been determined 
by the chemist, even though he knew the organic 
matter and the nitrogen must be very low In the 
poor soils, but nowhere was any such record to be 
found In the bulletin. He found the statement, how- 
ever, that all data were reported on the basis of 
ignited soil. 

"That will reduce some of these amounts about 
one-tenth," he said to himself. "In our physics 
work in college good soils generally lost about ten 
per cent. In weight by ignition, even after all hy- 
groscopic moisture had been expelled; but these very 
poor soils haven't much to lose, I guess. They sure- 
ly contain no carbonates and very little organic mat- 
ter, although they may contain some combined wa- 
ter." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

The Nation's Capitol 

PERCY spent three days in Washington. 
"If I lived here long," he wrote his 
mother, "I think I should become as 
optimistic as the Secretary of Agriculture, 
even though the total produce of the 
original thirteen states should supply a 
still smaller fraction of the necessities of life re- 
quired by their population. The Congressional Li- 
brary is by far the finest structure 1 tiave ever seen. 
I cannot help feeling proud that I am an American 
when I walk through its halls and look upon the 
portraits of the great men who helped to make our 
country truly great. 

'*As I shook hands with the President of the 
United States at one of his public receptions held in 
the *East Room' of the White House, I wondered if 
there was another country on the earth where the 
humblest subject could thus come face to face with 
the head of a mighty nation. In the Treasury Build- 
ing I was permitted to join a small party of some 
distinction and shared with each of them the privi- 
lege of holding in my hands for a moment eight mil- 
lion dollars in government bonds. 

"I have visited many of the great buildings, the 
Capitol, of course, and Washington's monument, 
which rises to a height of 555 feet above the sur- 
rounding land, or practically 600 feet above low- 
water level in the Potomac. There are many smaller 
monuments erected in honor of American heroes in 
various squares, circles, and parks throughout the 
City. 

165 



1 66 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

''The zoological garden took a full half-day, and 
1 could have spent a much longer time there. They 
told me of a frightful occurrence that happened only 
last week. In a pool of water a very large alligator 
Is kept confined by a low stout Iron fence. A negro 
woman w^as leaning over the fence holding her baby 
In her arms and looking at the monster who seemed 
to be asleep; when, without a moment's warning, he 
thrust himself half out of the water and snapped the 
baby from her arms, swallowing It at one gulp as 
he settled back Into the water. I fear the report Is 
true enough, for they have made the fence higher 
In a very temporary manner, and I heard It men- 
tioned by a dozen or more. 

"I leave Washington by boat at five o'clock this 
afternoon, and I expect to land at Leonardtown, St. 
Mary county, Maryland, about six o'clock In the 
morning, when the boat will be ready to leave that 
port. It is a freight boat and stops for hours at 
large towns. 

"I am planning for a trip Into New England next 
week. I did not realize how easy It Is to go there 
until I looked up the train service. In less than 
twelve hours' time, one can make the trip from the 
Virginia line, through the District of Columbia, 
Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Into Mas- 
sachusetts, — ten different States, Including the Dis- 
trict. The trip from Galena to Cairo can hardly be 
made in so short a time, not even on the limited Illi- 
nois Central trains." 

An hour before leaving the Washington hotel 
Percy chanced to meet a Congressman whom he had 
seen on several occasions at the University and who 
had spoken at the alumni banquet at the time of 
Percy's graduation. 

'Tm very glad you introduced yourself, Mr. 



THE NATION'S CAPITOL 167 

Johnston," said he. ''Want to get a place down 
here, do you? Very likely I can help you some. 
I've helped several friends of mine to get good 
places. What are you after?" 

"I am thinking of getting a place of about three 
hundred acres," said Percy, "and I shall certainly 
appreciate any assistance or Information you can 
give me." 

"Whe-e-ew! What are you up to? Want to sell 
us a cite for the new Government Insane hospital, or 
going to lay out another addition to the city?" 

"Neither," replied Percy. "I am looking for a 
piece of cheap land that I can build up and make Into 
a good farm." 

"Oh, ho !" said the Congressman. "That's It, Is 
It? Well, now let me tell you that you've struck the 
wrong neck of the woods to find land that you can 
make a good farm out of. The land about here Is 
cheap enough all right — cheaper than the votes of 
some politicians, but it can't be built up Into good 
farms. Don't attempt the impossible, my friend. If 
you want cheap land for town sites or insane hos- 
pitals, right here's the country to land In; but if you 
want a good farm, you stay right in Illinois, or else 
follow Horace Greeley's advice and 'go West'. 
That's a good suggestion for you, too. Just go West 
and get three hundred and twenty acres of the richest 
soil lying out of doors." 

"There Is not much land left in the West where 
the rainfall is sufficient for good crops," said Percy. 

"Then take irrigated land. The Government Is 
getting under way some big irrigation projects, and 
you ought to get in on the ground floor on one of 
those tracts. It is a fact that the apples from some 
of those Irrigated farms sometimes bring more than 
$500 an acre." 

"I don't doubt that," said Percy. "An Illustration 



1 68 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

or example can usually be found to prove almost any- 
thing. I know that the Perrine Brothers, who con- 
duct a fruit farm down in Egypt, actually received 
$800 per acre for the apples grown on thirteen acres 
one year; and there is plenty of such land in Egypt 
that can be bought for less than $40 an acre, and near 
to the great markets. I am told, however, that there 
are from a dozen to a hundred applicants for every 
farm opened to settlement in the West in these years, 
and it is estimated that all of the arid lands that can 
ever be put under irrigation in the United States will 
provide homes for no more than our regular increase 
in population in five years, and that the only other 
remaining rich lands — the swamp areas — will be oc- 
cupied by the increase of ten years in our population. 
It has seemed to me that it is high time we come back 
to these partially worn-out Eastern lands and begin 
to build them up. Here the rainfall is abundant, the 
climate is fine, and the markets are the best, and there 
are millions of acres of these Eastern lands that lie as 
nicely for farming as the Western prairies. Why 
should they not be built up into good farms?" 

"Now, let me give you a little fatherly advice," 
said the Congressman, laying his hand on Percy's 
shoulder. "I tell you this land never was any good. 
If the East and South hadn't been settled first, they 
never would have been settled. Poor land remains 
poor land, and good land remains good land; and if 
you want to farm good land, you better stay right in 
the corn belt. You can't grow anything on these 
Eastern lands without fertilizer and the more you 
fertilize the more you must, and still the land remains 
as poor as ever. Just leave off the fertilizer one year 
and your crop is not worth harvesting. These lands 
never were any good and they never will be." 

'*But that is hardly in accord with what the people 
now living on these old Eastern farms report for the 



THE NATION'S CAPITOL 169 

conditions of agriculture in the times of their ances- 
tors." 

"Oh, yes, I know people are always talking about 
their ancestors, and especially Virginians; but, Caesar! 
I wonder what their ancestors would think of them ! 
You can't afford to take any stock in the ancestry of 
these old Virginians." 

"I call to mind that the historical records give 
much information along this line," said Percy. "It 
is recorded that mills for grinding corn and wheat 
were common, that the flour of Mount Vernon was 
packed under the eye of Washington, and we are told 
that barrels of flour bearing his brand passed in the 
export markets without inspection. History records 
that the plantations of Virginia usually passed from 
father to son, according to the law of entail, and that 
the heads of families lived like lords, keeping their 
stables of blooded horses and rolling to church or 
town in their coach and six, with outriders on horse- 
back. Their spacious mansions were sometimes built 
of imported brick; and, within, the grand staircases, 
the mantles, and the wainscot reaching from floor to 
ceiling, were of solid mahogany, elaborately carved 
and paneled. The sideboards shone with gold and 
silver plate, and the tables were loaded with the lux- 
uries from both the New and the Old World, and 
plenty of these old mansions still exist in dilapidated 
condition." 

"That all sounds good for history," said the Con- 
gressman, "but the historian probably got his infor- 
mation from some of these old Virginians whose only 
religion Is ancestral worship. If the lands were ever 
any good they'd be good now. Good lands stay good. 
As an Illinois man, you ought to know that. My 
father settled In Illinois and I tell you his land Is 
.better today than it was the day he took it from the 
Government." 



I70 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"My grandfather also took land from the Govern- 
ment," said Percy, "but the land that he first put 
under cultivation is not producing as good crops now 
as it used to, even though—" 

"Then it must be you don't farm it right. Of 
course you don't want to corn your land to death. I 
lived on the farm long enough to learn that; but If 
you'll only grow two or three crops of corn and then 
change to a crop of oats, you'll find your land ready 
for corn again; and, if you'll sow clover with the oats 
and plow the clover under the next spring, you'll find 
the land will grow more corn than ever your grand- 
father grew on It." 

"But how can we maintain the supply of plant food 
In the soil by merely substituting oats for corn once In 
three or four years and turning under perhaps a ton 
of clover as green manure. That amount of clover 
would contain no more nitrogen than 40 bushels of 
corn would remove from the soil, and of course the 
clover has no power to add any phosphorus or other 
mineral elements." 

"Oh, yes. I've heard all about that sort of talk. 
You know I'm a U. of I. man myself. I studied 
chemistry in the University under a man who knew 
more In a minute than all the 'tommy rot' you've 
been filled up with. I also lived on an Illinois farm, 
and I speak from practical experience. I know what 
I am talking about, and I don't care a rap for all 
the theories that can be stacked up by your modern 
college professor, who wouldn't know a pumpkin If 
he met one rolling down hill. I tell you God Al- 
mighty never made the black corn belt land to be 
worn out, and he doesn't create people on this earth 
to let 'em starve to death. Don't you understand 
that?" 

"I am afraid that I do not," replied Percy. "I 
have received no such direct communication; but I 



THE NATION'S CAPITOL 171 

saw a letter written from China by a missionary de- 
scribing the famine-stricken districts In which he 
was located. He wrote the letter In February and 
said that at that time the only practical thing to do in 
that district was to let four hundred thousand peo- 
ple starve and try to get seed grain for the re- 
mainder to plant the spring crops. I have a "Hand- 
book of Indian Agriculture" written by a professor 
of agriculture and agricultural chemistry at one of 
the colleges in India. I got It from one of the 
Hindu students who attended the University when I 
was there. This book states that famine, local or 
general, has been the order of the day In India, and 
particularly within recent years. It also states that 
in one of the worst famines In India ten million peo- 
ple died of starvation within nine months. The 
average wage of the laboring man in India, accord- 
ing to the Governmental statistics, is fifty cents a 
month, and In famine years the price of wheat has 
risen to as high at $3.60 a bushel. This writer 
states that the most recent of all famines; namely, 
that prevailing in most parts of India from 1897 to 
1900, was severer than the famine of 1874 to 1878. 
No, Sir, I am not sure that I understand just what 
God's Intentions are concerning the corn belt, but it 
is recorded that the Lord helps him who helps him- 
self, and that man should earn his bread by the 
sweat of his brow. If God made the common soil 
in America with a limited amount of phosphorus in 
it, He also stored great deposits of natural rock 
phosphate In the mines of several States, and per- 
haps intended that man should earn his bread by 
grinding that rock and applying It to the soil. Pos- 
sibly the Almighty intended—" 

'*Now, I'm very sorry Mr. Johnston, but I have 
an engagement which I must keep, and you'll have to 
excuse me just now. Pm mighty glad to have met 



172 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

you and I'd like to talk with you for an hour more 
along this line; but you take my advise and stick 
to the corn belt land. Above all, don't begin to 
use phosphates or any sort of commercial fertilizer; 
they'll ruin any land in a few years; that's my opin- 
ion. But then, every man has a right to his own 
opinion, and perhaps you have a different notion. 
Eh?" 

"I think no man has a right to an opinion which 
is contrary to fact," Percy repHed. "This whole 
question is one of facts and not of opinions. One 
fact is worth more than a wagonload of incorrect 
opinions. But I must not detain you longer. I am 
very glad to have met you here. In large measure 
the statesmen of America must bear the responsibil- 
ity for the future condition of agriculture and the 
other great industries of the United States, all of 
which depend upon agriculture for their support and 
prosperity. Good bye." 

"I'll agree with you there alright; the farmer 
feeds them all. Good bye." 



CHAPTER XXV 
A Lesson on Tobacco 

PERCY found Leonardtown almost in the 
center of St. Mary county, situated on 
Breton bay, an arm of the lower Po- 
tomac. 

From the data recorded on the back 
of his map of Maryland, Percy noted that 
a population of four hundred and fifty-four found 
support in this old county seat, according to the cen- 
sus of 1900. After spending the day in the coun- 
try, he found himself wondering how even that num- 
ber of people could be supported, and then remem- 
bered that there is one industry of some importance 
in the United States which exists independent of ag- 
riculture, an industry which preceded agriculture, 
and which evidently has also succeeded agriculture 
to a very considerable extent in some places ; namely, 
fishing. 

"Clams, oysters and fish, and in this order," he 
said to himself, "apparently constitute the means of 
support for some of these people." 

And yet the country was not depopulated, al- 
though very much of the arable land was abandoned 
for agricultural purposes. A farm of a hundred 
acres might have ten acres under cultivation, this 
being as much as the farmer could "keep up", as 
was commonly stated. This meant that all of the 
farm manure and other refuse that could be secured 
from the entire farm or hauled from the village, to- 
gether with what commercial fertilizer the farmer 
was able to buy, would not enable him to keep more 
than ten acres of land in a state of productiveness 

173 



174 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

that justified its cultivation. Tobacco, corn, wheat, 
and cowpeas were the principal crops. Corn was the 
principal article of food, with wheat bread more or 
less common. The cowpeas and corn fodder usually 
kept one or more cows through the winter when 
they could not secure a living in the brush. To- 
bacco, the principal "money crop", was depended on 
to buy clothing, and "groceries", which Included 
more or less fish and pork, although some farmers 
"raised their own meat," In part by fattening hogs 
on the acorns that fell in the autumn from the scrub 
oak trees. 

One farm of one hundred and ninety acres owned 
by an old lady who lived in the nearby country vil- 
lage was rented for $ioo a year, which amounted to 
about fifty-two and one-half cents an acre as the 
gross Income to the landowner. After the taxes 
were paid, about thirty cents an acre remained for 
repairs on buildings and fences and interest on the 
investment. 

Percy spent some time on a five hundred acre 
farm belonging to an old gentleman who still gave 
his name as F. Allerton Jones, a man whose father 
had been prominent in the community. According 
to the county soil map which had been presented to 
Percy by the Bureau of Soils, the soil of this farm 
was all Leonardtown loam, except about forty acres 
which occupied the sides of a narrow valley a bend 
of which cut the farm on the south side. 

"My father had this whole farm under cultiva- 
tion," said Mr. Jones, "except the hillsides. But 
what's the use. We get along with a good deal less 
work, and I've found it better to cultivate less 
ground during the forty odd years I've had to meet 
the bills. But I've kept up more of my land than 
most of my neighbors. I reckon I've got about 
eighty acres of good cleared land yet on this farm, 



A LESSON ON TOBACCO 175 

and the leaves and pine needles we rake up where 
the trees grow on the old fields make a good fertil- 
izer for the land we aim to cultivate, and I get a 
good many loads of manure from friends who live 
in the village and keep a cow or a horse. 

"The last crop I raised on that east field, where 
you see those scrub pines, was in 188 1. I finished 
cultivating corn there the day I heard about President 
Garfield being shot; and it was a mighty hot July day 
too. My neighbor, Seth Whitmore, who died about 
ten years ago, came along from the village and waited 
for me to come to the end of the row down by the 
road and he told me that Garfield was shot. We 
both allowed the corn would be a pretty fair crop 
and when I gathered the fodder that fall there was a 
right smart of a corn crop. Yes, Sir, its pretty good 
land, but we don't need much corn, no how, and we 
can make more money out of tobacco. Of course it 
takes lots of manure and fertilizer to grow a good 
patch of tobacco, but good tobacco always brings 
good money." 

"About how much money do you get for an acre of 
tobacco?" asked Percy. 

"That varies a lot with the quality and price — 
sometimes $100, — sometimes $300, when the trust 
don't hold the price down on us. We can raise good 
tobacco and good tobacco brings us good money. We 
can always manure an acre or two for tobacco and get 
our groceries and some clothes now and then, and 
that's about all anybody gets in this world I reckon. 
But taxes are mighty high, I tell you. About $75 to 
$80 I have to pay. Are taxes high out West?" 

"We pay about forty to fifty cents an acre in the 
corn belt," Percy replied; "but, in a course I took in 
economics, I learned that the taxes do not vary in 
proportion to land values. Poor lands, if inhabited, 
must always pay heavy taxes ; whereas, large areas of 



176 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

good land carry lighter taxes compared with their 
earning capacity. You must provide your regular ex- 
penses for county officers, county courthouse, jail, and 
poorhouse, about the same as we do. Your roads 
and bridges cost as much as ours; and the schools in 
the South must cost more than ours, for a complete 
double system of schools is usually provided." 

"But did you say that you paid fifty cents an acre 
in taxes?" asked Mr. Jones. 

"Yes, about that, in the corn belt," replied Percy, 
"but not so much in Southern Illinois where the land 
is poor. I think the farmers in that section pay taxes 
as low as yours. Perhaps twenty cents an acre." 

"Do you mean to say that you have poor land in 
Illinois?" 

"Yes, the common prairie land of Southern Illi- 
nois must be called poor as compared with the corn 
belt land. There is a good deal of land in Southern 
Illinois that was put under cultivation before 1820, 
and eighty crops must have made a heavy draft upon 
the store of plant food originally contained in those 
soils." 

"Only since 1820? Why, we began to till the soil 
right here, Young Man, in St. Mary County, in 
1634; and don't you know. Sir, that we had a rebel- 
lion here as early as 1645? Yes, Sir, that was one 
hundred and seventy-five years before 1820. So 
you've raised only eighty crops and the land Is al- 
ready getting poor, and we've raised two hundred 
and fifty crops— well, maybe, not quite so many, for 
we've been giving our land a good deal of rest for 
the last fifty or sixty years; but my grandfather used 
to raise twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre with 
the help of a hundred pounds of land-plaster, and 
I've no doubt I could do it again today if I cared to 
raise wheat, but one acre of tobacco Is worth ten of 
wheat, so why should I bother with wheat?" 



A LESSON ON IXDBACCO 177 

*Twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre," repeated 
Percy, half to himself. "The total supply of phos- 
phorus still remaining In the plowed soil would be 
sufficient for only twenty more crops like that. Two 
hundred years of such crops would require 1600 
pounds of phosphorus, making nearly 1800 pounds 
at the beginning, if it all came from the plowed soil. 
That is one and a half times as much as is now con- 
tained in our common corn belt prairie land." 

"More stuff in our land than in yours, did you 
say?" questioned the old man. "I told you we had 
pretty good soil here, but I've always allowed your 
soil was better, but maybe not. I tell you manure 
lasts on this land. You can see where you put it for 
nigh twenty years. Then we rest our land some and 
that helps a sight, and if the price stays up we make 
good money on tobacco. I'm sorry your land Is get- 
ting so poor out West, especially if you can't raise 
tobacco. Ever tried tobacco. Young Man?— gosh, but 
you remind me of ohe of them Government fellows 
who came driving along here once when Bob and his 
brothers were plowing corn right here about three 
years ago. Bob's my tenant's nigger, and he ain't 
no fool either, even If he Is colored; but then, to 
tell the truth, he ain't much colored. Well, I was 
sitting under a tree right here smoking and keeping 
an eye on the niggers unbeknownst to them when one 
of them Government fellows stopped his horse as 
Bob was turning the end, and says he to Bob : 

" 'Your corn seems to be looking mighty yellow?' 

" 'Yes, suh,' says Bob. 'Yes, suh, we done planted 
yellow corn.' 

" 'Well, I mean It looks as though you won't get 
more than half a crop,' says he. 

" 'I reckon not,' says Bob. 'The landlord, he done 
gets the other half.' 

"With that the fellow says to Bob: 



178 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

*' 'It seems to me you're mighty near a fool.' 

" 'Yes, suh,' says Bob, 'and I'm mighty feared I'll 
catch it if I don't get a goin'.' 

"The fellow just gave his horse a cut and drove on, 
but I liked to died. He'd been here two or three 
times pestering me with questions about raising to- 
bacco. Say, you ain't one of them Government fel- 
lows, are you? They were travelling all around over 
this county three years ago, learning how we raised 
tobacco and all kinds of crops. They had augers 
and said they were investigating soils, but I never 
heard nothing of 'em since. Have you got an auger 
to investigate soils with?" 

Percy was compelled to admit that he had an 
auger and that he was trying to learn all he could 
about the soil. 

He had driven to Mr. Jones' farm because his 
land happened to be situated in a large area of 
Leonardtown loam, and he felt free to stop and 
talk with him because he had found him leaning 
against the fence, smoking a cob pipe, apparently 
trying to decide what to do with some small shocks 
of corn scattered over a field of about fifteen acres. 

Percy stepped to the buggy and drew out his soil 
auger, then returned to the corn field and began to 
bore a hole near where Mr. Jones was standing. 

"That's the thing," said he, "the same kind of 
an auger them fellows had three years ago. Still 
boring holes are you? Want to bore around over 
my farm again do you?" 

Percy replied that he would be glad to make bor- 
ings in several places in order that he might see 
about what the soil and subsoil were like in that kind 
of land. 

"That's all right. Young Man. Just bore as many 
holes as you please. I suppose you'd rather do 
that than work; but you'll have to excuse me. I've 



A LESSON ON TOBACCO 179 

got a lot to do today, and it's already getting late. 
I can't take time again to tell you fellows how to 
raise tobacco. Good day." 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Another Lesson on Tobacco 

THE old man had stuck his cob pipe In a 
pocket and filled his mouth with a chew 
of tobacco. 
He walked by Percy's buggy with the 
tobacco juice drizzling from the cor- 
ners of his mouth, and turned down the 
road toward the house. 

Percy finished boring the hole and then returned 
to the buggy. 

"Christ, that old man eats tobacco like a beast I" 
exclaimed the driver as Percy approached. 
*^Are you speaking to me?" asked Percy. 
"Why certainly." 

"That is not my name, please," admonished 
Percy, "but I can tell you that I know Him well 
and that He is my best friend." 
"What, old Al Jones?" 

"No, — Christ," replied Percy, with a grieved ex- 
pression plainly discernable. 
"Oh," said the driver. 

They drove past the Jones residence and out Into 
the field beyond. The house one might have 
thought deserted except for the well beaten paths 
and the presence of chickens In the yard. It was a 
large structure with two and a half stories. The 
cornice and window trimmings revealed the beauty 
and wealth of former days. Rare shrubs still grew 
in the spacious front yard, and gnarled remnants 
of orchard trees were to be seen in the rear. A 
dozen other buildings, large and small, occupied the 
background, some with the roofs partly fallen, 

1 80 



ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO i8i 

others evidently still in use. 

"How old do you suppose these buildings are?" 
asked Percy of the driver. 

"About a hundred years," he replied, "and I 
reckon they've had no paint nor fixin' since they was 
built, 'cept they have to give some of 'em new 
shingles now and then or they'd all fall to pieces 
like the old barns back yonder." 

Percy examined the soil in several places on the 
Jones farm and on other farms in the neighbor- 
hood. They lunched on crackers and canned beans 
at a country store and made a more extended drive 
in the afternoon. 

"It is a fine soil," Percy said to the driver, as 
they started for Leonardtown. "It contains enough 
sand for easy tillage and quick drainage, and enough 
clay to hold anything that might be applied to it." 

"That's right," said the driver. "Where they put 
plenty of manure and fertilizer they raise tobacco 
three foot high and fifteen hundred pounds to 
the acre, but where they run the tobacco rows 
beyond the manured land so's to be sure and 
not lose any manure, why the stuff won't grow 
six inches high and it just turns yellow and seems to 
dry up, no matter if it rains every day. Say, Mis- 
ter, would you mind telling me if you're a 
preacher?" 

"Oh, no," replied Percy, "I am not a preacher, 
any more than every Christian must be loyal to the 
name." 

"Well, anyway, I've learned a lesson I'll try to 
remember. I never thought before about how it 
might hurt other people when I swear. I don't 
mean nothing by it. It's just a habit; but your 
saying Christ is your friend makes me feel that I 
have no business talking about anybody's friend, 
any more than I'd like to hear anybody else use 



1 82 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

my mother's name as a by-word. I reckon nobody 
has any right to use Christ's name 'cept Chris- 
tians or them as wants to be Christians. I reckon 
we'd never heard the name if it hadn't a been for 
the Christians. 

"But I don't have so many bad habits. I don't 
drink, nor smoke, nor chew; and I don't want to. 
My father smoked some and chewed a lot, and I 
know the smell of tobacco used to make my mother 
about as sick as she could be; but she had to stand 
it, or at least she did stand it till father died; and 
now she lives with me, and I'm mighty glad she 
don't have to smell no more tobacco. 

"She often speaks of it— mother does; and she says 
she's so thankful she's got a boy that don't use to- 
bacco. She says men that use tobacco don't know 
how bad it is for other folks to smell 'em. Why, 
sometimes I come home when I've just been driving 
a man some place in the country, riding along like you 
and I are now, and he a smoking or chewing, or at 
least his clothes soaked full of the vile odor; and 
when I get home mother says, ^My! but you must 
have had an old stink pot along with you to-day.' 
She can smell it on my clothes, and I just hang my 
coat out in the shed till the scent gets off from it. 

"No, Sir, I don't want any tobacco for me, and I 
don't know as I'd care to raise the stuff for other 
folks to saturate themselves with either; and every 
kid is allowed to use it now days, or at least most of 
them get it. It's easy enough to get it. Why, a kid 
can't keep away from getting these cigarettes, if he 
tries. They're everywhere. Every kid has his 
pockets full; and I know blamed well that some 
smoke so many cigarettes they get so they aren't more 
than half bright. It's a fact, Sir,— plenty of 'em too; 
and some old men, like Al Jones, are just so soaked 
in tobacco they seem about half dead. Course it 



ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO 183 

ain't like whiskey, but I think it's worse than beer if 
beer didn't make one want whiskey later. 

*'But as I was saying, I feel that I have no business 
saying things about, — about anybody you call your 
friend, and I think I'll just swear off swearing, if I 
can." 

*'You can if you will just let Him be your friend." 

"Well, I don't know much about that," was the 
slow reply. "That takes faith, and I don't have 
much faith In some of the church members I know." 

"That used to trouble me also," said Percy, "until 
one time the thought Impressed itself upon me that 
even Christ himself did all His great work with one 
of the twelve a traitor; and this thought always comes 
to me now when self-respecting men object to uniting 
with organized Christianity because of those who 
may be regarded as traitors or hypocrites, but not of 
such flagrant character as to insure expulsion from the 
Church." 

"Do you believe In miracles?" asked the driver. 

"Oh, yes," said Percy, "In such miracles as the 
growth of the corn plant." 

"Why, that isn't any miracle. Everybody under- 
stands all about that." 

"Not everybody," replied Percy. "There is only 
One who understands It, There is only one great 
miracle, and that Is the miracle of life. It Is said that 
men adulterate coffee, even to the extent of making 
the bean or berry so nearly like the natural that it 
requires an expert to detect the fraud; but do you 
think an imitation seed would grow?" 

"No, It wouldn't grow," said the driver. 

"Not only that," said Percy, "but we may have a 
natural and perfect grain of corn and it can never be 
made to grow by any or all of the knowledge and 
skill of men, if for a single instant the life principle 
has left the kernel, which may easily result by chang- 



1 84 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ing its temperature a few degrees above or below the 
usual range. The spark of life returns to God who 
gave it, and man is as helpless to restore it as when 
he first walked the earth. 

"What miracle do you find hard to accept?" asked 
Percy. 

"How could Jesus know that Lazarus had died 
when he was on the other side of the mountain?" 

"I don't know," Percy replied; "perhaps by some 
sort of wireless message which his soul could receive. 
I don't know how, but it was no greater miracle than 
it would have been then to have done what I did last 
week." 

"The driver turned to look squarely at Percy as 
though in doubt of his sanity, but a kindly smile re- 
assured him. 

"Our train coming into Cincinnati ran in two sec- 
tions," Percy continued, "and the section behind us 
was wrecked, three travellers being killed and about 
fifteen others wounded. I was sure my mother would 
hear of the wreck before I could reach her with a let- 
ter, and so I talked with her from Cincinnati over the 
long distance 'phone, with which we have always had 
connection since I first went away to college. Yes, I 
talked with her, and, though separated by a distance 
three times the entire length of Palestine, I distinctly 
heard and recognized my mother's voice. Oh, yes, I 
believe in miracles; but that is a matter of small con- 
sequence. The important thing is that we have faith 
in God and faith in Jesus Christ, his Son." 

"Well, that's what troubles me," said the driver. 
"How's one to get faith?" 

"There are two methods of receiving faith," re- 
plied Percy. "Faith cometh by prayer." 

"Yes, Sir, I believe that." 

"And 'faith cometh by hearing.' " 

"Hearing what?" 



ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO 185 

*' 'Hearing by the Word of God;' hearing those 
who have studied His Word and who testify of Him; 
and hearing with an ear ready to receive the truth." 



CHAPTER XXVII 
Eighteen to One 

TWO days later Percy was in Rhode Island 
visiting a farm owned by Samuel Rob- 
bins, one of the most progressive and 
successful farmers of that State. 

Mr. Robbins' farm lay in what ap- 
peared to be an ancient valley, several 
miles in width, although only a small stream now 
winds through it to the sea seven miles away. 

*'So you are from Illinois," said Mr. Robbins, 
after Percy had introduced himself and explained the 
nature of his visit. "The papers have a good deal to 
say about the corn you grow in Illinois ; but have you 
noticed that the Government reports show our aver- 
age yield of corn in New England is higher than 
yours in Illinois?" 

"Yes, Sir," Percy replied, "I have noticed that and 
I have come to Rhode Island to learn how to raise 
more corn per acre. I have noticed, however, that 
New England corn does not occupy a large acreage." 
"Well, now, we count corn as one of our big crops, 
next to hay. You'll see plenty of corn fields right 
here in Rhode Island." 

"Would you believe that we actually raise more 
corn on one farm in Illinois than the total com crop 
of Rhode Island?" 
"You don't tell !" 

"Yes," said Percy, "the Isaac Funk farm in Mc- 
Lean County grows more corn on seven thousand 
acres a year, with an average yield certainly above 
fifty bushels per acre, and surely making a total above 
350,000 bushels; while the State of Rhode Island 

186 



EIGHTEEN TO ONE 187 

grows corn on nearly ten thousand acres with an 
average yield of thirty-two bushels, making a total 
yield of about 320,000 bushels." 

"Well, ril give it up; but I'd like to know how 
much corn you raise in the whole State of Illinois." 

"Our average production," said Percy, "is about 
equal to the total production of Maine, New 
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Is- 
land, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and 
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and 
Mississippi." 

"Eighteen of us!" exclaimed Mr. Robbins, who 
had counted on his fingers from New York to Mis- 
sissippi; "And you come to Rhode Island to learn 
how to raise corn?" 

"Yes, I came to learn how you raise more than 
thirty-five bushels of corn per acre as an average 
for New England, while we raise less than thirty- 
five bushels as an average in Illinois, and while 
Georgia, a larger State than Illinois, raises only 
eleven bushels per acre as a ten year average. Il- 
linois is a new State, but I call to mind that Roger 
Williams settled in Rhode Island in 1636 and that 
he was joined by many others coming not only 
from Massachusetts but also from other sections. 
I assume that much of the land in Rhode Island 
has been farmed for 250 years, and the fact that 
you are still producing more than thirty bushels of 
corn per acre, as an average, is, it seems to me, a 
fact of great significance. I suppose you use all 
the manure you can make from the crops you raise 
and perhaps use some commercial fertilizer also. I 
should like to know what yield of corn you produce 
without any manure or fertilizer." 

"We don't produce any," said Mr. Robbins; "at 
least we know we wouldn't produce any corn with- 



1 88 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

out fertilizing the land In one way or another. If 
you will walk over here a little ways you can see for 
yourself. I didn't have quite enough manure to fin- 
ish this field and I had no more time to haul sea- 
weed so I planted without getting any manure on 
a few rods in one corner, and the corn there 
wouldn't make three bushels from an acre. I didn't 
bother to try to cut it, but the cows will get what 
little fodder there Is as soon as I can get the 
shocks out of the field and turn 'em In for a few 
days to pick up what they can." 

Percy examined the corn plants still standing In 
the corner of the field. They had grown to a 
height of about two feet. Most of them had tas- 
sels and many of them appeared to have little ears, 
but really had only husks containing no ear. In a 
few places where the hill contained only one plant 
a little nubbin of corn could be found. 

"I don't mean to let any of my land get as poor 
as this field was," continued Mr. Robbins, "but I 
just couldn't get to it, and I left it in hay about two 
years longer than I should have done. Last year 
was first class for hay but this field had been down 
so long It was hardly worth cutting." 

"About what yield do you get from the manured 
land?" inquired Percy. 

"In a fair year I get about forty bushels, and 
that's about what I am getting this year from my 
best fields. You see there's lots of corn in these 
shocks. There's about an average ear, and we get 
five or six ears to the hill." 

"Eight-row flint," said Percy, as he took the ear 
in his hand and drew a celluloid paper knife from 
his vest pocket with a six Inch scale marked on one 
side. 

"Yes, Sir, our regular Rhode Island White Cap." 

"Just five inches long. Weight about three 



EIGHTEEN TO ONE 189 

ounces?" 

"Perhaps. We count on about four hundred ears 
to the bushel. If we get four thousand hills to the 
acre one ear to the hill would give us ten bushels 
per acre, so you see we only have to have four ears 
to the hill to make our forty bushels. A good many 
hills have five to six ears, but then of course, some 
hills dont' have much of any, so I suppose my corn 
makes an average of four ears about like that." 

''I suppose you feed all of the corn you raise in 
order to produce as much manure as possible." 

"Feed that corn ! Not much we don't. Why 
corn like that brings us close on to a dollar a bushel. 
No, Sir, we don't feed this corn. It's all used for 
meal. It makes the best kind of corn meal. No, 
we buy corn for feed; western corn. Oh, we feed 
lots of corn; three times as much as we raise; but we 
don't feed dollar corn, when we can buy western 
corn for seventy-five or eighty cents. 

"I sell corn and I sell potatoes; that's all except 
the milk. I keep most of my land in meadow and 
pasture and feed everything I raise except the corn 
and potatoes. And milk is a good product with us. 
We average about sixty cents a pound for butter 
fat, and it's ready money every month; and, of 
course, we need it every month to pay for feed." 

"Then you produce on the farm all the manure 
you use," suggested Percy, "but I think you men- 
tioned hauling seaweed." 

"Yes, and I haul some manure, too, when I can 
get it; but usually there are three or four farmers 
ready to take every load of town manure." 

"You get it from town for the hauling?" 

"Well, I guess not," said Mr. Robbins emphatical- 
ly and with apparent astonishment at such a ques- 
tion. "I don't think I would haul seaweed seven 
miles if I could get manure in town for nothing. 



I90 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

Manure is worth $1.50 a ton lying in the livery 
stable, and there are plenty to take it at that right 
along. I'd a little rather pay that than haul sea- 
weed; but the manure won't begin to go around, 
and so there's nothing left for us but seaweed; and, 
if we couldn't get that, the Lord only knows what 
we could do." 

"How much seaweed can you haul to a load, and 
about how many loads do you apply to the acre?" 

"When the roads are good we haul a cord and a 

quarter, and we put ten or twelve loads to the acre 

for corn and then use some commercial fertilizer." 

"Do you know how much a cord of the seaweed 

would weigh?" 

"Yes, a cord weighs about a ton and a half." 
"Then you apply about twenty tons of seaweed to 
the acre for corn." 

"Yes, but some use less and some more; probably 
that's about an average. Hauling seaweed's a big 
job and a bad job. We have to start from home long 
before daylight so as to get there and get the weed 
while the tide is out, and then we get back with our 
load about two o'clock in the afternoon; and, by the 
time we eat and feed the team and get the load to 
the field and spread, there isn't much time left that 
day, especially when you've got to pile out of bed 
about two o'clock the next morning and hike off for 
another load." 

"Then you use some fertilizer in addition to the 
seaweed? May I ask how much fertilizer you apply 
to the acre and about how much it costs per ton?" 

"Where we spread seaweed for corn, we add 
about four hundred and fifty pounds per acre of fer- 
tilizer that costs me $26 a ton, but I have the agency 
and get it some cheaper than most have to pay. Then 
for potatoes we apply about 1500 pounds of a spec- 
ial potato fertilizer that costs me $34 a ton." 



Eighteen TO ONE 191 

"The fertilizer costs you about $6 an acre for the 
corn crop and $25 for potatoes," said Percy; "and 
then you have the cost of the seaweed. I should think 
you would need to count about $25 or $30 an acre for 
the expense of hauling seaweed." 

"Yes, all of that if we had to pay for the work, but 
of course we can haul seaweed more or less when the 
farm work isn't crowding, and we don't count so 
much on the expense. It doesn't take the cash, ex- 
cept may be a little for a boy to drive one team when 
we haul two loads at a time; and we don't use sea- 
v/eed for potatoes. The corn crop will generally 
more'n pay for it and the fertilizer too; and the sea- 
weed helps for three or four years, especially for 
grass. There's good profit in potatoes, too, when we 
get a crop, but they're risky, considering the money 
we have to pay for fertilizer." 



CHAPTER XXVIIl 

Farmer or Professor 

AFTER leaving Rhode Island, Percy spent 
two days In and about Boston, and then 
returned to Connecticut for a day. The 
weather had turned cold; the ground 
had frozen and the falling snow re- 
minded him that It was the day before 
Thanksgiving. 

From New London he took a night boat to New 
York, and then took passage on a Coast Line vessel 
from New York to Norfolk. 

The weather had cleared and the wind decreased 
until it was scarcely greater than the speed of the ship. 
Whether or not the dining room service was extra- 
ordinary because of the day, Percy was soon convinced 
that the only way to travel was by boat. He re- 
gretted only that his mother was not with him to en- 
joy that day. For hours they coasted southward 
within easy view of the New Jersey shore, dotted here 
and there with cities, towns, and villages. Light 
houses marked the rocky points where danger once 
lurked for the men of the sea. 

The sea itself was of constant interest; and hun- 
dreds of crafts were passed or met. Here a full- 
rigged sailing vessel lazily drifting with the wind; 
there a giant little tug puffing in the opposite direc- 
tion with a string of barges in tow loaded almost to 
the water's edge. 

Norfolk was reached early the next morning, and 
before noon Percy passed through Petersburg on his 
way to Montplain. He changed cars at Lynchburg 
and arrived at Montplain before dark. In accord- 

192 



FARMER OR PROFESSOR 193 

ance with a promise to Mr. West he had notified him 
of his plans. 

Would Adelaide meet him, and if so would she 
have the family carriage and again insist upon his 
riding in the rear seat? He had found these ques- 
tions in his mind repeatedly since he left New Lon- 
don, with no very definite purpose before him except 
to arrive at Montplain at the appointed time. 

Yes, it was the family carriage. He saw the farm 
team tied across the street from the depot. As he left 
the train he caught a glimpse of Adelaide standing 
with the group of people who were waiting to board 
the train. She extended her hand as he reached her 
side. 

"Mr. Johnston, meet my cousin. Professor Bar- 
stow." 

"I am glad to meet you. Professor," said Percy, 
as he shook hands with a tall young man about his 
own age. Percy noted his handsome face and gentle- 
manly bearing. 

"Miss Adelaide calls me cousin," said Barstow, 
"because my aunt married her uncle." 

"Well, Sir, if we're not cousins, then I'm Miss 
West and not Miss Adelaide. Is that too much for 
an absent-minded professor to remember?" 

"I am afraid it is," said Barstow, "and I am sure I 
would rather be cousins." 

"Professor Barstow leaves on this train," Adelaide 
explained to Percy; "excuse me, please." 

Percy raised his hat as he stepped back from the 
crowd and waited for the parting of the two. He 
was sure that Barstow held her hand longer than was 
necessary, and he also noticed that her face flushed 
as she rejoined him after the train started. 

"Will you take the rear seat?" she asked, as they 
reached the carriage. 

"If you so prefer." 



194 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

''That seat Is for our guests, so I don't prefer,'* 
came her reply, which left Percy wholly in the dark 
as to her wishes. 

"Then let me be your coachman rather than your 
guest." 

"If you so prefer," she repeated, and without wait- 
ing for assistance quickly mounted to the front seat, 
leaving him to occupy the driver's seat beside her. 

"Captain and Mrs. Stone of Montplain were 
with us for Thanksgiving and I came with the 
carriage to take them home. Professor Barstow 
has also been spending his Thanksgiving vacation 
visiting with Papa." 

"Thank you," said Percy, as he took the lines 
and turned the horses toward Westover. 

"You are certainly welcome to drive this team if 
you enjoy it." 

"I thank you for that also," said Percy. Ade- 
laide noted the word also, but she only remarked 
that she hoped he had enjoyed his travels, though 
she could not understand what pleasure he could 
find in visiting old worn-out farms. 

"Of all things," she continued, "it seems to me 
that farming is the last that anyone would want to 
undertake." 

"It is both the first and the last," said Percy. As 
you know, when our ancestors came to America, 
agriculture was the first great industry they were 
able to develop. Other industries and professions 
follow agriculture and must be supported in large 
measure by the agricultural Industry. Merchants, 
lawyers, doctors and teachers are in a sense agri- 
cultural parasites." 

An hour before he would not have included 
teachers in this class; for, next to the mother In the 
home, he felt that the teacher In the school Is the 
greatest necessity for the highest development of 



FARMER OR PROFESSOR 195 

the agricultural classes. 

"Without agriculture," he continued, "America 
could never have been developed, and, unless the 
prosperity of American agriculture can be main- 
tained, poverty Is the only future for this great na- 
tion. The soil Is the greatest source of wealth, and 
it is the most permanent form of wealth. The Sec- 
retary of Agriculture at Washington told me a few 
days ago that eighty six per cent, of the raw ma- 
terials used in all our manufacturing industry are 
produced from the soil. 

"Yes, agriculture is certainly the first Industry in 
this country; and I am fully convinced that to re- 
store the fertility of the depleted soils of the East 
and South, and even to maintain the productive 
power of the great agricultural regions of the West, 
deserves and will require the best thought of the 
most Influential people of America. 

"Throughout the length and breadth of this land, 
the almost universal purpose of the farmers is to 
work the land for all they can get with practically 
no thought of permanency. The most common re- 
mark of the corn belt farmer is that his land doesn't 
show much wear yet; and it is holding up pretty 
well, or as well as could be expected; or that he 
thinks it will last as long as he does. All recognize 
that the land cannot hold up under the systems of 
farming that are being practiced, and these systems 
are essentially the same as have been followed in 
America since 1607. What the Southern farmer 
did with slave labor, the Western farmer is now 
doing with the gang plow, the two-row cultivator, 
and the four-horse disks and harrows. In addition 
he tile-drains his land which helps to insure larger 
crops and more rapid soil depletion. He even uses 
clover as a soil stimulant, and spreads the farm 
fertilizer as thinly as possible with a machine made 



196 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

for the purpose In order to secure both its plant 
food value and its stimulating effect. Positive soil 
enrichment is practically unknown in the great corn 
belt. 

"Robbery is a harsh word; and yet the farm- 
ers and landowners of America are and always 
have been soil robbers; and they not only rob the 
nation of the possibility of permanent prosperity, 
but they even rob themselves of the very comforts 
of life in their old age and their children and grand- 
children of a rightful inheritance. 

"Worse than all this, or at least more lament- 
able, is the fact that it need not be. The soils of 
Virginia need not have become worn out and aban- 
doned; because the earth and the air are filled with 
the elements of plant food that are essential to the 
restoration and permanent maintenance of the 
high productive capacity of these soils. Moreover 
there is more profit and greater prosperity for the 
present landowner in a possible practicable system 
of positive soil improvement than under any system 
which leads to ultimate depletion and abandonment 
of the land. 

"The profit in farming lies first of all in securing 
large crop yields. It costs forty bushels of corn 
per acre in Illinois to raise the crop and pay the 
rent for the land or interest and taxes on the invest- 
ment. With land worth $150 an acre, it will re- 
quire $8 to pay the interest and taxes. Another $8 
will be required to raise the crop and harvest and 
market it, even with very inadequate provision 
made for maintaining the productive power of the 
soil, such as a catch crop of clover, or a very light 
dressing of farm fertilizer. A forty-bushel crop of 
corn at forty cents a bushel, which is about the ten- 
year average price for Illinois, would bring only 
$16 an acre, and this would leave no profit what- 



FARMER OR PROFESSOR 197 

ever. 

"A crop of fifty bushels would leave only ten 
bushels as profit; but, if we could double the yield 
and thus produce a hundred bushels per acre, the 
profit would not be doubled only, but it would be six 
times as great as from the fifty bushel crop. In 
other words, 100 bushels of corn from one acre 
would yield practically the same profit as fifty 
bushels per acre from six acres, simply because it 
requires the first forty bushels from each acre to pay 
for the fixed charges or regular expense. 

*'It is not the amount of crop the farmer handles, 
but the amount of actual profit that determines his 
prosperity. It requires profit to build the new 
home or repair the old one, to provide the home 
with the comforts and conveniences that are now to 
be had in the country as well as in the city; to send 
the boys and girls to college; to provide for the 
expense of travel and the luxuries of the home." 

Percy stopped himself with an apology. 

**I hope you will pardon me, Miss West. I for- 
get that this subject may be of no interest to you, 
and I have completely monopolized the conversa- 
tion." 

**I am glad you have told me so much," she re- 
plied. "I am deeply interested in what you have 
been saying. I never realized that agriculture could 
involve such very important questions in regard to 
our national prosperity. I only know that our farm 
has funished us with a living but there has been 
very little of what you call profit. We children 
could never have gone away to school except that 
we were enabled to take advantage of some unsual 
opportunities. My brother almost earned his ex- 
penses as commissary in a boarding club at college. 
He felt that he could not come home for Thanks- 
giving because he had a chance to earn something 



198 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

and I have missed him so much. Most farmers 
get barely enough from their farms In these parts 
to furnish them a modest hving and pay their taxes." 

"That reminds me of your statement that farm- 
ing is the last thing that you would expect anyone 
to undertake. In a large sense that is In accord- 
ance with the history of all great agricultural coun- 
tries. After the great wave of easy spoliation of 
the land has passed, and the farmers reach a con- 
dition under which they need most of what they 
produce for their own consumption, the parasites 
are themselves forced to produce their own food. 
The lands become divided into smaller holdings 
and the agricultural inhabitants increase rapidly In 
proportion to the urban population which must de- 
pend upon the profits from secondary pursuits for a 
living. Thus ninety-five per cent, of the three hun- 
dred million people of India belong principally to 
the agricultural classes, and the farms of India 
average about two to three acres in size. Farming 
there is in no sense a profit-yielding business, but 
it Is only a means of existence. The people live 
upon what they raise, so far as they can, although, 
as you must know, Irfdia is almost never free from 
famine. In Russia the situation Is but little better, 
for famine follows If the yield of wheat falls two 
bushels below the average. Special agents of the 
Bureau of Statistics of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture report that at least one famine 
year occurs in each five year period, and sometimes 
even two; that the famine years are so frequent 
they are recognized as a permanent feature of Rus- 
sian Agriculture." 

"But couldn't those poor starving people do some 
other kind of work and thus earn a better living?" 
asked Adelaide. 

"No. Agriculture is the only hope," said Percy. 



FARMER OR PROFESSOR 199 

The soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which 
her children must always draw their nourishment or 
perish. It is the 'last thing,' as you truly said. Aside 
from hunting and fishing, there is no source of food 
except the soil, and, when this is insufficient for the 
people who produce it in the country, God pity the 
poor people who live in the cities. But let us not 
talk of this more. I ought not to have taken up the 
time of our ride through this beautiful scenery with 
a subject which tends always toward the serious. 
The leaves are all gone in New England, but here 
they have only taken on their most beautiful colors. 
'What is so rare as a day in June?' could now well 
be answered, 'a day in November in Piedmont Vir- 
ginia.' " 

''Do you know if your father received a letter 
for me from the chemist to whom I sent the soil 
samples?" 

"Yes, it came in Wednesday's mail, and there is 
a letter from the University of Illinois and two 
others that Grandma says must be from a lady. 
Papa says he is anxious to know what results would 
be found in the chemist's report. May I listen 
while you tell papa about it? Indeed, I am ex- 
tremely interested to know if anything can be done 
to make our farm produce such crops as it used 
to when grandmother was a little girl." 

"Still I fear you will find it a very tiresome sub- 
ject," said Percy. "It is, as a rule, not an easy 
matter to adopt a system of permanent improve- 
ment on land that has been depleted by a century 
or more of exhaustive husbandry, but you will be 
very welcome not only to listen but to counsel also. 
My mother can measure difficulties in advance bet- 
ter than most men; and I believe it is true that 
women will deliberately plan and follow a course 
involving greater hardship and privation than men 



20O THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

would undertake. I cannot conceive of any man 
doing what my mother has done for me." 

Adelaide glanced at Percy as he spoke of his 
mother. Something In his words or voice seemed 
to reveal to her a depth of feeling, a wealth of af- 
fection akin to reverence, such as she had never 
recognized before. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

The Ultimate Comparison 

WILKES was at the side gate to meet 
Adelaide and Percy, and the grand- 
mother stood at the door as they 
reached the veranda. 

"Lucky for us you got back before 

the Thanksgiving scraps are all 

gone," she said to Percy, "but I suppose even our 

Thanksgiving fare will be poor picking after you've 

been living in Washington and Boston." 

"Even the Thanksgiving dinner on the boat was 
not equal to this," said Percy, as they sat down to 
the table loaded with such an abundance of good 
things as is rarely seen except on the farmer's table. 
The "scraps," if such there were, had no appearance 
of being left-overs, and there was a monster turkey, 
browned to perfection and sizzling hot, placed before 
Mr. West ready for the carving knife. 

Percy had opened the letter from the chemist, but 
said to Mr. West that it would take him an hour or 
more to compute the results to the form of the actual 
elements and reduce them to pounds per acre in order 
to make possible a direct comparison between the re- 
quirements of crops, on the one hand, and the invoice 
of the soil and application of plant food in manure 
and fertilizers, on the other hand. 

"Please let me help you make the computations," 
said Adelaide, much to the surprise of her parents, 
who knew that she took no interest in affairs pertain- 
ing to farming. "I like mathematics and will promise 
not to make any mistakes if you will tell me how to 
do some of the figuring." 

201 



202 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

''Thank you," said Percy. "With your help It will 
take only half the time that I should require alone." 

This proved to be correct, for in half an hour after 
supper they had the results in simplified form. Even 
the mother and grandmother joined the circle as 
Percy began to discuss the results with Mr. West. 

''Now here is the invoice," said Percy, "of the sur- 
face soil from an acre of land where we collected the 
first composite sample, — the land which you said had 
not been cropped since you could remember. This 
soil contains plant food as follows : 

1,440 pounds of nitrogen 
380 pounds of phosphorus 
15,760 pounds of potassium 

3,340 pounds of magnesium 
10,420 pounds of calcium 

"I'd like to know how these amounts compare with 
what your Illinois soil contains," said Mr. West. 

"We have several different kinds of soil in Illi- 
nois," replied Percy. "The common corn belt prairie 
soil is called brown silt loam. It contains, as an 
average, 5000 pounds of nitrogen and 1200 pounds 
of phosphorus, or nearly four times as much of each 
of those elements as this Virginia soil which you say 
is too poor to cultivate. 

"I wrote to the Illinois Experiment Station before 
I left Washington to see if I could get the average 
composition of the heavier prairie soil, which occupies 
the very flat areas that were originally swampy, and 
one of the letters you had received for me gives 8000 
pounds of nitrogen and 2000 pounds of phosphorus 
as the general average for that soil. That is our most 
productive land, and it contains about five times as 
much of these two very important elements as your 
poorest land. 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 203 

"Our more common Illinois prairie contains about 
35,000 pounds of potassium, 9,000 pounds of mag- 
nesium, and 1 1,000 pounds of calcium. This is more 
than twice as much potassium and nearly three times 
as much magnesium as in your poorest land, but the 
calcium content is about the same in your soil as in 
ours. However, as you will remember, your soil is 
distinctly acid and consequently markedly in need of 
lime, the magnesium and calcium evidently being con- 
tained in part in the form of acid silicates with no 
carbonates ; whereas, our brown silt loam is a neutral 
soil and our black clay loam contains much calcium 
carbonate, the same compound as pure limestone." 

"I am anxious to know about our best land," said 
Mr. West. "What did the chemist find in the soil 
from the slope where we get the best corn after break- 
ing up the old pastures?" 

"He found the following amounts In the surface 
soil," said Percy. 

800 pounds of nitrogen 
1,660 pounds of phosphorus 

34,100 pounds of potassium 
8,500 pounds of magnesium 

13,100 pounds of calcium 

"Rich in everything but nitrogen," Percy contin- 
ued, "richer than our common prairies in phosphorus 
and calcium, and nearly as rich in potassium and mag- 
nesium; but very, very poor in nitrogen. Legume 
plants ought to grow w^ell on that land, because the 
minerals are present in abundance, and, while lack of 
nitrogen in the soil will limit the yield of all grains 
and grasses, there is no nitrogen limit for the legume 
plants if infected with the proper nitrogen-fixing 
bacteria, provided, of course, that the soil is not acid. 
You will remember, however, that even this sloping 



204 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

land is more or less acid, although here and there we 
found pieces of undecomposed limestone. With a 
liberal use of ground limestone, any legumes suited to 
this soil and climate ought to grow luxuriantly on 
those slopes." 

"That reminds me that we are greatly troubled 
with Japan clover on those slopes," said Mr. West. 
"Of course it makes good pasture for a few months, 
but it doesn't come so early in the spring as blue grass 
and it is killed with the first heavy frost in the fall. 
We like blue grass much better for that reason, but 
when we seed down for meadow and pasture, the 
Japan clover always crowds out the timothy and blue 
grass on those slopes." 

"And when you plow under the Japan clover, you 
get one or two good crops of grain," said Percy, "be- 
cause this clover has stored up some much needed ni- 
trogen and the soil is rich in all other necessary ele- 
ments. Have you ever tried alfalfa on that kind of 
land? That is a crop that ought to do well there, 
especially if limestone were applied." 

"Yes, I have tried alfalfa," replied Mr. West, 
"and I tried it on a strip that ran across one of those 
steep slopes; but it failed completely, and, as I re- 
member it, it was poorer on that hillside than on the 
more level land." 

"Did you inoculate it?" Percy asked. 

"Inoculate it? No. I didn't do anything to it, but 
just sow it the same as I sow red clover." 

What does it mean to inoculate it?" asked Ade- 
laide. 

"It means to put some bugs on it," said the grand- 
mother; "some germs or microbes, or whatever they 
are called. Don't you remember, Adelaide, that I 
told you about that when I read it in the magazine a 
while ago? Don't you remember that somebody was 
making it and a man could carry enough in his vest 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 205 

pocket to fertilize an acre and he wanted $2 a 
package. Charles said that $1.50 a hundred was 
more than he could afford to pay for fertilizer, and 
he didn't care to pay $2 for a vest pocket package. 
Isn't that the stuff, Mr. Johnston ?" 

"It listens like it, as the Swedes say," said Percy, 
"but the advertisements of these germ cultures put 
out by commercial interests are usually very mislead- 
ing. The safest and best and least expensive method 
of inoculating a field for alfalfa is to use infected soil 
taken from some old alfalfa field or from a patch of 
ground where the common sweet clover, or mellilo- 
tus, has been growing for several years. I saw the 
sweet clover growing along the railroad near Mont- 
plain, and there is one patch on the roadside right 
where— when you enter the valley on the way to the 
station." 

"Right where Adelaide smashed that nigger's 
eye with her heel and helped Mr. Johnson capture 
them both," broke in the grandmother. "That's 
the only good thing I can say for her peg heeled 
shoes." 

Adelaide colored and Percy now understood 
what had been a puzzle to him. 

"The same bacteria," he went on quickly, "live 
upon both the sweet clover and the alfalfa, or at 
least they are interchangeable. These bacteria are 
not a fertilizer in any ordinary sense, but they are 
more in the nature of a disease, a kind of tubercu- 
losis, as it were; except that they do much more 
good than harm. They attack the very tender 
young roots of the alfalfa and feed upon the nutri- 
tious sap, taking from it the phosphorus and other 
minerals and also the sugar or other carbohydrates 
needed for their own nourishment, since they have 
no power to secure carbon and oxygen from the air, 
as is done by all plants with green leaves. On the 



2o6 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

other hand, these bacteria have power to take the 
free nitrogen of the air, which enters the pores of 
the soil to some extent, and cause it to combine with 
food materials which are secured from the alfalfa 
sap, and thus the bacteria secure for themselves 
both nitrogen and the other essential plant foods. 
The alfalfa root or rootlet becomes enlarged at the 
point attacked by the bacteria, and a sort of wart 
or tubercle is formed which resembles a tiny potato, 
as large as clover seed on clover or alfalfa, and, 
singularly, about as large as peas on cowpeas or soy 
beans. On plants that are sparsely infected, these 
tubercles devolp to a large size and often in clus- 
ters. While the bacteria themselves are extremely 
small and can be seen only by the aid of a power- 
ful microscope, the tubercles in which they live are 
easily seen, and they are sufficient to enable us to 
know whether the plants are infected." 

"I wish you would tell me the difference between 
the words inoculated and infected," said Adelaide. 

'^Inoculated is used in the active sense and infect- 
ed in the passive," said Percy. "Thus the red 
clover growing in the field is infected if there are 
tubercles on its roots, although it may never have 
been inoculated; and we inoculate alfalfa because 
it would not be likely to become infected without 
direct inoculation." 

"Under favorable conditions," continued Percy, 
"these bacteria multiply with tremendous rapidity, 
somewhat as the germs of small pox or yellow fever 
multiply if allowed to do so. A single tubercle 
may contain a million germs which if distributed 
uniformly over an acre would furnish more than 
twenty bacteria for every square foot." 

"There, Charles," said the grandmother, 
"wouldn't a vest pocketful of those bugs or germs 
be a big enough dose for one acre?" 




Tubercles about as large as peas on the roots of the cowpea. One 
tubercle may contain a million germs. 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 207 

"Well, but they're not a fertilizer, Mother," said 
Mr. West, "and besides Mr. Johnston says It Is bet- 
ter to use the Infected sweet clover soil and there 
Is no need of paying $2 an acre for something we 
knew nothing about, and especially on land that Is 
not worth more than $2 an acre." 

"I don't care what it's worth," she replied, 
"some of It cost your grandfather $68 an acre, and 
it will never be sold for any $2 while I have any 
say so about it." 

They waited for Percy to proceed. 

"The Individual bacteria are very short-lived," 
he continued, "and products of decay soon begin to 
accumulate In the tubercles. These products con- 
tain, in combined form, nitrogen which the bacteria 
have taken from the air, and in this form it is taken 
from the tubercles and absorbed through the roots 
into the host plant and thus serves as a source of 
nitrogen for all of the agricultural legumes. 

"It should be kept in mind, of course, that the 
red clover has one kind of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, 
that the cowpea has a different kind, and that the 
soy bean bacteria are still different, while a fourth 
kind lives on the roots of alfalfa and sweet clover." 

"How much Infected sweet clover soil would I 
need to inoculate an acre of land for alfalfa?" 
asked Mr. West. 

"If the soil is thoroughly Infected, a hundred 
pounds to the acre will do very well If applied at 
the same time the alfalfa seed is sown and Immedi- 
ately harrowed in with the seed. If allowed to lie 
for several hours or days exposed to the sunshine 
after being spread over the land the bacteria will 
be destroyed, for like most bacteria, such as those 
which lurk in milk pails to sour the milk, they are 
killed by the sunshine." 

"That's right," said the grandmother. "That's 



io8 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

the way to sterilize milk pails and pans and crocks. 
I like crocks better than pans. They don't have 
any sort of joints to dig out." 

"Of course," continued Percy, "a wagon load of 
infected soil will make a more perfect inoculation 
than a hundred pounds, and where it costs nothing 
but the hauling it is well to use a liberal amount." 

"How deep should it be taken?" asked Mr. 
West. 

"About the same depth as you would plow. The 
tubercles are mostly within six or eight inches of 
the surface. The bacteria depend upon the 
nitrogen of the air and this must enter the 
surface soil. Sometimes in wet weather the 
tubercles can be found almost at the surface of the 
ground, and when the ground cracks one can often 
find tubercles sticking out in the cracks an inch or 
two beneath the surface but protected from direct 
sunshine. 

"These bacteria have power to furnish very 
large amounts of nitrogen to such a crop as alfalfa. 
The Illinois Station reports having grown eight and 
one-half tons of alfalfa per acre in one season. It 
was harvested in four cuttings. The hay itself was 
worth at least $6 a ton above all expenses, which 
would bring $51 an acre net profit for one year. Of 
course this was above the average, which is only 
about four and one-half tons over a series of sev- 
eral years. But suppose you can save only three 
tons and get $6 a ton net for it, as you could easily 
do by feeding it to your cattle and sheep. That 
would bring $18 an acre or six per cent, interest 
on $300 land. I am altogether confident that this 
could be done on your sloping hillsides with their 
rich supplies of phosphorus and other mineral 
foods, provided, of course, that you use plenty of 
ground limestone and thoroughly inoculate the 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 209 

soil." 

"Well, I shall certainly try alfalfa again," said 
Mr. West, "and If I can grow such crops of alfalfa 
as you think on the hillsides, I can have much more 
farm manure produced for the improvement of the 
rest of the land. By the way what did that chem- 
ist find in that sample you took of the other land 
where it does not wash so much as on the steeper 
slopes." 

"He found the following: 

1,030 pounds of nitrogen 

1,270 pounds of phosphorus 

16,500 pounds of potassium 

7,460 pounds of magnesium 

16,100 pounds of calcium 

"Well, the phosphorus is not so low," said Mr. 
West. 

"Fully equal to that in our $150 Illinois prairie," 
replied Percy, "and again the calcium is more than 
ours, with magnesium not far below, and potassium 
half our supply. Nitrogen is plainly the most seri- 
ous problem on most of this farm, and limestone 
and legumes must solve that problem if properly 
used." 

"Do you think this land could be made as valu- 
able as the Illinois land just by a liberal use of lime- 
stone and legumes?" asked Adelaide. 

"I should have some doubt about that," Percy 
replied. "Your very level uplands that neither lose 
nor receive material from surface washing are very 
deficient in phosphorus and much poorer than ours 
in potassium and magnesium; and your undulating 
and steeply sloping lands are more or less broken, 
with many rock outcrops on the points and some 
impassable gullies, which as a rule compel the cul- 



^10 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

tlvation of the land In small irregular fields. A 
three-cornered field of from two to fifteen acres can 
never have quite the same value per acre as the 
land where forty or eighty acres of corn can be 
grown in a body with no necessity of omitting a sin- 
gle hill. Then there is some unavoidable loss from 
surface washing, so that to maintain the supply of 
organic matter and nitrogen will require a larger 
use of legumes than on level land of equal richness. 
In addition to this is the initial difference in humus 
content. This is well measured by the nitrogen con- 
tent. While your soil contains eight hundred 
pounds of nitrogen on the steeper slopes and one 
thousand pounds on the more gently undulating 
areas, ours contains five thousand pounds in the 
brown silt loam and eight thousand pounds in the 
heavier black clay loam. This means that our Il- 
linois prairie soil contains from five to ten times 
as much humus, or organic matter as your best up- 
land soil. To supply this difference in humus would 
require the addition of from four hundred to eight 
hundred tons per acre of average farm manure, or 
the plowing under of one hundred to two hundred 
tons of air-dry clover. This represents the great 
reserve of the Illinois prairie soils above the total 
supplies remaining in your soils. 

"Our farmers are still producing crops very largely 
by drawing on this reserve. Of course most of this 
great supply of humus is very old. It represents the 
organic residues most resistant to decomposition; and, 
where corn and oats are grown exclusively, the soil 
has reached a condition on many farms under which 
the decomposition of the reserve organic matter is so 
slow that the nitrogen liberated from its own decay 
and the minerals liberated from the soil by the action 
of the decomposition products are not sufficient to 
meet the requirements of large crops, and for this 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 2 1 1 

reason alone some of our lands that are still rich are 
said to be run down ; but they only require a moderate 
use of clover or farm manure or other fresh and ac- 
tive organic matter to at once restore their productive- 
ness to a point almost equal to the yields from the 
virgin soil. Some Illinois farmers who have discov- 
ered this apparent restoration have jumped to the 
conclusion that they have solved the problem of per- 
manently maintaining the fertility of the soil; and I 
judge from a remark made by the Secretary of Agri- 
culture that some Iowa farmers have the same mis- 
taken notions. 

"These fresh supplies of active organic matter 
serve primarily as soil stimulants, hastening the liber- 
ation of nitrogen from the organic reserve and of 
minerals from the inorganic soil materials. 

"Where one of these Eastern farmers has managed 
a farm under the rotation system with the occasional 
use of clover or light applications of farm manure, — 
where this has been continued until the great reserve 
is largely gone, and the phosphorus supply greatly 
depleted, then the land is truly run down, but not un- 
til then. 

"Finally, land-plaster and quick-lime, still more 
powerful soil stimulants, are often brought into the 
system to bring about a more complete exhaustion of 
the soil reserves, and lastly the use of small amounts 
of high-priced commercial fertilizers serves to put the 
land in suitable condition for ultimate abandonment." 

"Do you mean that commercial fertilizers injure 
the soil?" asked Mr. West. 

"Well, to some extent they injure the soil 
because they tend to destroy the limestone 
and increase the acidity of the soil, and 
also because they contain more or less man- 
ufactured land-plaster and thus serve as soil stim- 
ulants; but the chief point to keep In mind concerning 



212 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

the use of the common so-called complete commercial 
fertilizer Is that they are too expensive to permit their 
use In sufficient quantities to positively enrich the soil. 
Thus the farmer may apply two hundred pounds of 
such a fertilizer at a cost of $3.00 an acre, and then 
harvest a crop of wheat, two crops of hay, pasture for 
another year or two, plow up the ground for corn, 
apply another two hundred pounds for the corn crop, 
follow with a crop of oats, and then repeat. He 
thus harvests five crops and pastures a year or two 
and applies perhaps four hundred pounds of fertilizer 
at a cost of $6.00. 

"As an average of the most common commercial 
fertilizers sold to the farmers In the Eastern and 
Southern States, the four hundred pounds would add 
to the soil seven pounds of nitrogen, fourteen pounds 
of phosphorus and seven pounds of potassium, while 
a single fifty-bushel crop of corn will remove from 
the soil ten times as much nitrogen, five times as 
much potassium and nearly as much phosphorus as 
the total amounts applied In this six-year or seven- 
year rotation. 

"In this manner the farmer extends the time during 
which he can take from the soil crops whose value 
exceed their cost. He applies only one-fourth or 
possibly one-half as much of the most deficient ele- 
ment as the crops harvested require, and thus he con- 
tinues for a longer time to 'work the land for all that's 
in it!"' 

"Well, Isn't that the limit?" said Adelaide, with 
emphasis on the "Isn't," for which she received a dis- 
approving look from her mother, so far as her almost 
angel-face could give such a look. 

"So far as human ingenuity has yet devised," re- 
plied Percy, "this system appears to be the limit; but 
this limit has not yet been reached on any Westover 
soil. If anyone can devise a method for extending 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 213 

this limit he should apply it on a type of soil covering 
more than two-fifths of the total area of St. Mary 
County and more than 45,000 acres of Prince George 
County, Maryland, some of which almost adjoins 
the District of Columbia. This soil has been reduced 
in fertility until it contains only one-third as much 
phosphorus as your poorest land. I found a Western 
man who had come down to Maryland a few years 
ago. He saw that beautiful almost level upland soil, 
and it looked so good to him that he bought and kept 
buying until he had 'squared out' a tract of eleven 
hundred acres. He still had left money enough to 
fence the farm and to put the buildings in good re- 
pair. He was a live-stock farmer from the West who 
just knew from his own experience and from that of 
the Secretary of Agriculture, in the use of a little 
clover or farm manure in unlocking the great reserves 
of an almost virgin soil, that all his Maryland farm 
needed was clover seed and live stock. Sheep es- 
pecially he knew to be great producers of fertility. 

"He sowed the clover and grass seed and they 
germinated well. He even secured a fine catch, but 
it failed to hold, as we say out West. He tried again 
and again, and failed as often as he tried. He showed 
me his best clover on a field that had received some 
manure made from feed part of which was pur- 
chased, and that had also received five hundred 
pounds per acre of hydrated lime, which he was fin- 
ally persuaded to use, after becoming convinced that 
clover-growing on old abandoned land was not ex- 
actly as easy as clover-growing on a *run-down' farm 
of almost virgin soil in the West." 

"And was the clover good after that treatment?" 
asked Mr. West. 

"No, not good," said Percy, "but in some places 
where the manure had been applied to the high points, 
as is the custom of the Western farmer, the yield of 



214 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

clover, weeds, and foul grass together must have been 
nearly a half ton to the acre. Fortunately he waited 
to fully stock his farm with cattle and sheep until he 
should have some assurance of producing sufficient 
feed to keep them for a time at least, instead of mak- 
ing the common mistake of the less experienced farm- 
er who goes to the country from the city, and who 
imagines that, if he has plenty of stock on the farm, 
they must of necessity produce abundance of manure 
with which to enrich his land for the production of 
abundant crops." 

"Well, now you'll have to show me," said the 
grandmother. "To my way of thinking that's a 
pretty good kind of a notion for a farmer to have, 
and I'd like to know what's wrong with it." 

Again a shadow seemed to cross the sweet face 
as the mother's glance turned from grandma to 
Adelaide. 

"The system has some merit," replied Percy, 
"but it starts at the wrong point in the circle. Cat- 
tle and sheep must first have feed before they can 
produce the fertilizer with which to enrich the soil; 
and people who would raise stock on poor land 
should always produce a good supply of food be- 
fore they procure the stock requiring to be fed. 
There is probably no more direct route to financial 
disaster than for one to insist upon over-stocking 
a farm that is essentially worn out." 

"But doesn't pasturing enrich the soil?" asked 
the grandmother. 

"Pasturing may enrich the soil only in a single 
element of plant food," said Percy. "In all other 
elements simple pasturing must always contribute to- 
ward soil depletion. If the pasture herbage con- 
tains a sufficient proportion of legume plants so that 
the fixation of free nitrogen exceeds the utilization 
of nitrogen in animal growth, then the soil will 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 2 1 5 

be enriched in that element, although with the same 
growth of plants it would be enriched more rapidly 
without pasturing; for animals are not made out 
of nothing. Meat, milk, and wool are all highly 
nitrogenous products. 

"On the other hand no amount of pasturing can 
add to the soil a single pound of any one of the 
six mineral elements, and phosphorus, which is nor- 
mally the most limited of all these elements, is ab- 
stracted from the soil and retained by the animals 
In very considerable amounts. As an average one- 
fourth of the phosphorus contained In the food con- 
sumed is retained In the animal products, especially 
in bone, flesh, and milk." 

"Well, I didn't know that milk contained phos- 
phorus," said Mr. West, "although I did know, of 
course, that phosphorus must be contained in bone." 

"But, as you know," said Percy," milk Is the only 
food of young animals, and they must secure their 
bone food from the milk. Furthermore, the com- 
plete analysis of milk shows that It contains very 
considerable quantities. There are also records of 
digestion experiments in which less than one-half 
ot the phosphorus in the food consumed was recov- 
ered in the total manurial excrements. As a mat- 
ter of fact there is a time in the life of the young 
mother, as with the two-year old cow, for example, 
when she must abstract from the food she consumes 
sufficient phosphorus for the nourishment of three 
growing animals,— her own Immature body, a suck- 
ling calf, and another calf as yet unborn. 

"Of course the organic matter of the soil should 
Increase under pasturing, especially under condi- 
tions that make possible an accumulation of nitro- 
gen; but here too the animals make no contribution 
toward any such accumulation. With the same 
growth of plants the accumulation of organic mat- 



21 6 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ter would be much more rapid without live stock.'* 

"It is known absolutely but not generally that 
live stock destroy about two-thirds of the organic 
matter contained in the food they consume. With 
grains the proportion is higher, and with coarse for- 
age it is lower, but as an average about two-thirds 
of the dry matter in tender young grass or clover 
or in a mixed, well-balanced ration of grain and hay 
is digested and thus practically destroyed so far as 
the production of organic matter is concerned. 

''This you could easily verify yourself, Mr. West, 
by feeding two thousand pounds of any suitable ra- 
tion, such as corn and clover hay, collecting and dry- 
ing the total excrement, which will be found to 
weigh about seven hundred pounds, if it contains no 
higher percentage of moisture than was contained 
in the two thousand pounds of food consumed. 

"Of course one should not forget that the liquid 
excrement contains more nitrogen and more potas- 
sium than the solid, and that much of this can be 
saved and returned to the land by use of plenty of 
absorbent bedding, and in pasturing there is no 
danger of any loss from this source." 

"That is one great trouble with us," said Mr. 
West. "We never have as much bedding as we 
could use to advantage, and it is altogether too ex- 
pensive to permit us to think of buying straw." 

"Probably it would be much less expensive for 
you to buy ground limestone and then use good al- 
falfa hay for bedding," said Percy. "I mean ex- 
actly what I say," he continued. "Of course I do 
not advise you to use good alfalfa hay in that way, 
but it would be a cheap source of very valuable 
bedding, and it would make an extremely valuable 
manure. However, I should not hesitate to make 
liberal use of partially spoiled alfalfa hay for bed- 
ding, and you are quite likely to have more or less 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 2 1 7 

such hay; for under favorable conditions, such as 
you can easily have with your soil and climate, al- 
falfa comes on with a rush In the spring, and often 
the first crop should be cut before the weather Is 
suitable for making hay. There should be very lit- 
tle or no delay at this time, because the first cut- 
ting should be removed In order that It may be out 
of the way for the second crop, which comes for- 
ward still more rapidly under normal conditions. 

"Some of our Illinois farmers make strenuous 
objection to taking care of an alfalfa field that pro- 
duces $50 worth of the richest and most valuable 
hay, because It Interferes too much with the proper 
care of a $25 corn crop, which they somehow feel 
requires and deserves all their time and attention. 

''Some of our Virginia farmers have sent to Il- 
linois for their seed corn," said Mr. West; "and 
they report very good results as a rule, especially 
on land that has been kept up. On our poor land I 
think the native corn does better than the western 
seed." 

"Perhaps that is because It Is used to It," sug- 
gested Percy, "used to making the struggle for It- 
self on poor land. Fighting for all It gets, so to 
speak. You know the high-bred animals cannot hold 
their own with the scrubs when It comes to pawing 
the snow off the dead wild grass for a living in the 
winter, as cattle must do sometimes on the plains 
of the Northwest. 

"Well, there may be something In that," respond- 
ed Mr. West, "but the western seed corn certainly 
looks fine." 

"Yes, that is true," said Percy,'* "Our farmers 
have made marked improvement in seed corn; they 
also understand very well how to grow corn. They 
know how and when to prepare the ground, how 
and when to plant; and how and when to cultivate. 



2i8 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

When Illinois farmers go to Iowa to buy land, the 
Iowa real estate men usually take them to see a 
farm that is owned and operated by a former II- 
linoisan, and they insist that there are no other 
farmers who know^ how to raise corn quite so well 
as the Illinois farmer. Perhaps the Illinois real es- 
tate man would tell a similar story to the Iowa 
farmer if he ever came there to buy land, but 
'Westward the Course of Empire takes it Way' and 
the man once gone west knows the east no more, 
except as a market for his surplus products or a 
good place in which to spend his surplus cash. 

"But, here. We must finish our study of the 
data that Miss Adelaide so kindly helped me to 
compute." 

It was the first time that he had spoken her 
name in her presence; and she met his glance as she 
raised her eyes. 

What's in a name? 
What's in a glance? 

Percy proceeded without delay; and Adelaide lis- 
tened as before, her drooping lashes protecting her 
eyes almost entirely from the view of others. The 
father and mother heard no name spoken and saw no 
eyes meet, and yet as Percy continued speaking a sec- 
ond self seemed to be thinking different thoughts and 
he was conscious of a strong desire to look longer 
than an instant into those captivating eyes. 

A side glance, as she let her lashes droop, revealed 
to Adelaide that grandma alone had heard and seen. 
But Percy was a very common place man. Certainly 
he had no such face as had held her glance for more 
than an instant as the afternoon train began to move 
from the depot platform. Percy was slightly above 
the average height and solidly built, but he was not 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 219 

tall. His face had often been described as a "perfect 
blank." No one saw anything of what lay within by 
merely looking Into his eyes, and yet there was a cer- 
tain Indescribable something that appealed to one 
from those eyes. An elderly German lady once re- 
marked to his mother: "Ihr Sohn hat so etwas gutes 
im Auge." 

Percy was not polished in manner, i\delaide ad- 
mitted. Professor Barstow had said that he deliber- 
ated for half an hour as to whether he should bring 
his "cawds," for use on Thanksgiving day, because 
he feared that the custom In "Vi'ginia" might not be 
the same as In "No'th Cahllna;" while she doubted 
very much if Percy had any cards whatever. She had 
never heard it said that he was "strong as an ox and 
quick as lightning," but perhaps she knew it as well 
as his schoolm.ates ever had. She had not heard that 
one of the college professors, noted for his short-cut 
expressions, had once told his class that he wished 
they would all "keep their thinking apparatus in as 
good repair as Johnston's." One thing she did know 
w^as that Percy's voice had been trained to talk to a 
woman, and that no other voice had ever spoken 
her name as he did. Reserve force? depth of man- 
hood? confidence in his own words? absolute deci- 
sion? wealth of tenderness? persistent endurance? 
unfailing loyalty? boundless affection? Deep in 
her heart Adelaide felt that these were among the 
attributes revealed in Percy's voice. When he 
spoke all listened. His voice w^as low-pitched but 
rich in tone and volume and sincerity,— that was the 
word.— The whole man seemed to feel and speak 
when he spoke. He surely can have no secrets. 
His mother must know all that he knows of his 
own self; but were those letters from his mother? 
The handwriting was very modern. Even her 
father made an old-fashioned C and W in signing 



220 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

his own name. Had he not looked at the writing 
on both those letters before he noticed the others? 
and why did he remain so long in his room before 
coming down to dinner? Had he not been in col- 
lege — in a great University where there were hun- 
dreds of the brightest girls of his own State? But 
why should any girl be interested in farming? 
Teaching is such a cultured profession. 

Only a moment— just while he was sorting the 
papers upon which they had made the computa- 
tions, but a hundred thoughts had passed through 
her mind. Now he was speaking. 

"You remember we took a sample of the subsoil 
on the sloping land. This soil Is evidently residual, 
formed in place from the disintegration of the un- 
derlying rock. The soil may represent only a small 
part of the original rock, because of the loss by 
leaching. Here are the amounts of plant food 
found in two million pounds of the subsoil: 

590 pounds of nitrogen 

1,980 pounds of phosphorus 

37,940 pounds of potassium 

24,880 pounds of magnesium 

31,320 pounds of calcium 

"A splendid subsoil," Percy continued. "I know 
of none better In Illinois, except that we sometimes 
have more calcium in the form of carbonate, and 
even somewhat more potassium In places; but this 
must be a fine subsoil for alfalfa, where the bed 
rock Is not too near the surface. Of course there 
Is but little nitrogen in the subsoil, but that Is true 
of all normal soils, because the nitrogen Is contained 
only in the organic matter, and that decreases rapid- 
ly with depth and usually becomes Insufficient to 
color the soil below 18 Inches." 



THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON 221 

''Now," began Mr. West, "from these different 
analyses or invoices, and from your discussion of 
these results, I take it that you would not advise me 
to purchase any commercial fertilizer for use on the 
land we are still using in my rotation; but you think 
we should make large use of limestone and legume 
crops." 

"Yes, Sir. Phosphorus is markedly dificient only 
in the very level upland which has been allowed 
to remain uncleared for fifty years or more, and 
nitrogen is certainly the limiting element on the land 
you are trying to keep in your rotation. While you 
cannot hope to put into your soil any such reserve 
of slow-acting organic matter as we still have in 
our comparatively new soils of the West, we may 
keep in mind that a small amount of quick-acting 
fresh organic matter is more effective than a large 
supply of what we might call embalmed material 
that decomposes very, very slowy unless assisted by 
the addition of more active organic matter. It fre- 
quently happens that one soil containing a large re- 
serve of old humus, and hence showing more or- 
ganic carbon and more nitrogen, by the ultimate in- 
voice, than another soil, is, nevertheless, less pro- 
ductive, because the other soil contains a larger 
amount of fresh organic matter which decays quick- 
ly and thus furnishes more nitrogen and liberates 
more of the other elements from the insoluble min- 
erals of the soil because of the greater abundance 
of the active products of organic decay. 

"I think you should keep in mind, however, that, 
for every twenty-five bushels of corn you wish to 
produce, you should return to the soil one ton of 
clover or four tons of average farm manure, and 
that for one ton of produce hauled to the barns and 
fed, you will probably not return to the land more 
than one ton of manure." 



CHAPTER XXX 

*'Stone Soup" 

THE next forenoon Percy and Mr. West 
spent some time making some further 
tests with hydrochloric acid and litmus 
paper in different places on the farm; 
but the result only confirmed the previ- 
ous examinations. 
"I never before saw any such light as now ap- 
pears," said Mr. West. "It seems to me that for 
the first time in the history of Westover, covering 
about two centuries, a real plan can be intelligently 
made based upon definite information looking to- 
ward the positive improvement of the soil. While 
you have been away, I have been looking up the 
lime matter. I find that a lime is being advertized, 
and sold in small amounts, that is called hydrated 
lime, and it is especially prepared as an agricultural 
lime. It is recommended by some dealers as being 
fully equal to the ordinary commercial fertilizer 
which sells at about $25 a ton, while this hydrated 
agricultural lime can be bought for $8 a ton, and I 
think for a little less in larger amounts. You men- 
tioned also that you had seen some one who had 
used hydrated lime, but it didn't seem to make much 
of a clover crop. Of course, I understand from 
what you said that his soil contained only one hun- 
dred and sixty pounds of phosphorus, and I take it 
that lime alone could not markedly improve his 
soil; but still I would like to know why, if he has 
one hundred and sixty pounds of phosphorus in his 
plowed soil, he could not produce a few good crops 
of clover. How much phosphorus does it require 

222 



'^STONE SOUP'^ 223 

for a ton of clover? 

"One ton of clover contains only five pounds of 
phosphorus," Percy replied, "and of course the 
roots must also require some phosphorus, although 
after the crop is produced and removed, the phos- 
phorus contained in the roots remains for the bene- 
fit of subsequent crops. Thus we might suppose the 
land which contains one hundred and sixty 
pounds of phosphorus ought to furnish the 
phosphorus needed for a three ton crop 
of clover every year for ten years; but in 
actual practice no such results are secured. 
The invoice of the plant food in the soil is a matter 
of very great importance, for it reveals the mathe- 
matical possibilities, but another matter of almost 
equal importance is the problem of liberating plant 
food from this supply sufficient for the crops to be 
produced year by year. 

"Decaying or active organic matter is one of 
the great factors in the liberation of plant food, and 
undoubtedly the extension or distribution of the 
root system of the growing plant is another very po- 
tent factor. If the root surfaces come in contact 
with one per cent, of the total surface of the soil 
particles in the plowed soil, then we might conceive 
of a relationship whereby one per cent, of the phos- 
phorus in that soil would be dissolved or liberated 
from the Insoluble minerals and thus become avail- 
able as food for the growing crop. We know that 
the rate of liberation varies greatly, with different 
soils and seasons, and crops also differ In their 
power to assist themselves in the extraction of min- 
eral plant food from the soil. The presence of 
limestone encourages the development of certain 
soil organisms which tend to hasten some decompo- 
sition process. But, all things considered, it may be 
said, speaking very generally, that the equivalent of 



^24 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

about one per cent, of the total phosphorus contain- 
ed In the plowed soil does become available for the 
crops under average conditions. On this basis one 
hundred and sixty pounds of phosphorus would 
furnish about one and one-half pounds for the crops 
during one season. But In such a soil the phosphorus 
still remaining may be the most difficultly soluble, 
and the supply of decaying organic matter may be 
extremely low, so that possibly less than one pound 
per acre would become available, and this would 
meet the needs of less than four hundred pounds 
per acre of clover hay. Futhermore, the supply 
grows less and less with every crop removed. 

"With your ordinary soil, carrying twelve hun- 
dred and seventy pounds of phosphorus, perhaps 
you may be able by a liberal use of decaying 
organic matter to liberate ten or fifteen pounds 
of phosphorus, or sufficient for a crop of forty to 
sixty bushels of corn; and, with a subsoil richer in 
phosphorus than the surface, and with more or less 
of the partially depleted surface removed by ero- 
sion year by year, the supply of phosphorus is thus 
permanently provided for, unless the bed rock is 
brought too near the surface. It Is doubtful if the 
direct addition of phosphorus to your sloping lands 
will ever be necessary or profitable. Certainly such 
addition Is not advisable until you have brought the 
land to as high a state of fertility as Is practicable 
by means of limestone, legumes, and manure." 

"That seems clearly to be the case with most of 
the land now under cultivation on this farm," said 
Mr. West. "Can you tell me anything about this 
hydrated Hme?" 

"I can tell you It is correctly named," Percy re- 
plied. "Hydrated means watered, and an Invest- 
ment In hydrated lime Is properly classed with other 
watered investments. If you prefer to use hydrated 



''STONE SOUF' 225 

lime I would suggest that you buy fresh burned 
lump lime and do the hydratlng yourself, which 
only requires that you add eighteen pounds of wa- 
ter to each fifty-six pounds of quick lime; in other 
words, that you slack the lime by adding water in 
the proper proportion. Both quick lime and hy- 
drated lime are known as caustic lime. Webster 
says that the word caustic means 'capable of de- 
stroying the texture of anything or eating away its 
substance by chemical action.' 

"This definition is correct for caustic lime, as 
you can easily determine by keeping your hand in 
a bucket of slacked lime a few minutes. Caustic 
lime eats away the organic matter of the soil. In 
an experiment conducted by the Pennsylvania Ex- 
periment Station, during a period of sixteen years, 
eight tons of hydrated lime destroyed organic mat- 
ter equivalent to thirty-seven tons of farm manure, 
as compared with the use of equivalent applications 
of ground limestone; and, as an average of the 
sixteen years, every ton of caustic lime applied lib- 
erated seven dollar's worth of organic nitrogen, as 
compared with ground limestone. That this much 
liberated nitrogen was essentially wasted and lost is 
evidenced by the fact that larger crops were pro- 
duced where ground limestone was used than where 
burned lime was applied. 

"The limestone must be quarried whether used 
for grinding or for burning, and the grinding can 
be done for twenty-five cents a ton where a large 
equipment with powerful machinery is used and 
where cheap fuel is provided, as near the coal min- 
ing districts. It need not be very finely ground. If 
ground to pass a sieve with sixteen meshes to the 
linear inch. It Is very satisfactory, provided that all 
of the fine dust produced in the grinding is Included 
in the product. You see the soil acids are slightly 



^2(5 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

soluble and they attack the limestone particles and 
are thus themselves destroyed or neutralized. If, 
however, you ever wish to use raw rock phosphate, 
Insist upon Its being sufficiently fine-ground that at 
least ninety per cent, of It will pass through a sieve 
with ten thousand meshes to the square Inch, this 
being no finer than Is required for the basic slag 
phosphate, of which several million tons are now 
being used each year In the European countries. 
Like the raw rock phosphate, the slag gives the 
best results only when used In connection with plenty 
of decaying organic matter." 

"That reminds me," said Mr. West, "of what 
one of the fertilizer agents said about raw phos- 
phate. He said the use of raw phosphate with 
farm manure reminded him of 'stone soup', which 
was made by putting a clean round stone In the ket- 
tle with some water. Pepper and salt were added, 
then some potatoes and other vegetables, a piece of 
butter and a few scraps of meat. 'Stone soup,' thus 
made, was a very satisfactory soup. He said that 
In practically all of the tests of raw phosphate con- 
ducted by the various State Experiment Stations, 
manure has been used as a means of supplying or- 
ganic matter to liberate the phosphorus from the 
raw rock, but In such large quantity as to be entire- 
ly Impracticable for the average farmer to use on 
his own fields; and his opinion was that the entire 
benefit was due to the manure. He had a little 
booklet entitled 'Available or Unavailable Plant 
Food— Which?' published by the National Fertil- 
izer Association, and said I could get a copy by 
addressing the Secretary at Nashville, Tennessee." 

"Fortunately," said Percy, "this Is not a question 
of opinion but one of fact; and It has been discov- 
ered that the fertilizer agents who are long on 
opinions and short on facts prefer to sell four tons 



^'STONE SOUP" 227 

of complete fertilizer for $80, or even two tons of 
acid phosphate for $30, rather than to sell one ton 
of raw phosphate, containing the same amount of 
phosphorus, for $7.50. In the manufacture of 
acidulated fertilizers, one ton of raw phosphate, 
containing about two hundred and fifty pounds of 
the element phosphorus, is mixed with one ton of 
sulfuric acid to make two tons of acid phosphate; 
and, as a rule, these two tons of acid phosphate are 
mixed with two tons of filler to make four tons of 
complete fertilizer. A favorite filler is dried peat, 
which is taken from some of the peat bogs, as at 
Manito, Illinois, and shipped in train loads to the 
fertilizer factories. The peat Is not considered 
worth hauling onto the land in Illinois, even where 
the farmers can get it for nothing; but it contains 
some organic nitrogen, and, by the addition of a 
little potassium salt, the agent is enabled to call 
the product a ''complete" fertilizer. 

"Experiments with the use of raw rock phos- 
phate have been conducted by the State Agricultural 
Experiment Stations over periods of twelve years 
In Maryland, eleven years in Rhode Island, twen- 
ty-one years (in two series) In Massachusetts, four- 
teen years (in two series) in Maine, twelve years 
In Pennsylvania, thirteen years In Ohio, four years 
In Indiana, and from four to six years on a dozen 
different experiment fields in different parts of Il- 
linois. 

"I have here some quotations taken from the di- 
rectors of several of these experiment stations 
which fairly represent the opinions which they 
have expressed concerning their own Investigations. 
Thus the Maryland director says : 

" 'The results obtained with the insoluble phos- 
phates has cost usually less than one-half as much 
as that with the soluble phosphates. Insoluble 



22 8 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

South Carolina phosphate rock produced a higher 
total average yield than dissolved South Carolina 
rock.' 

"The Rhode Island director comments as fol- 
lows: 

" 'With the pea, oat, summer squash, crimson 
clover, Japanese millet, golden millet, white podded 
Adzuka bean, soy bean, and potato, raw phosphate 
gave very good results; but with the flat turnip, 
table beet, and cabbage it was relatively very in- 
efficient.' 

"The following statement is from the Massachu- 
setts director: 

" 'It is possible to produce profitable crops of 
most kinds by liberal use of natural phosphates, and 
in a long series of years there might be a consider- 
able money saving in depending at least in part 
upon these rather than upon the higher priced dis- 
solved phosphates.' 

"The director of the Maine State Experiment 
Station gives us the following: 

" 'For the first year the largest increase of crop 
was produced by soluble phosphate. For the sec- 
ond and third years without further addition of 
fertilizers, better results were obtained from the 
plots where stable manure and insoluble phosphates 
had been used.' 

"The stable manure and insoluble phosphates 
here referred to were not applied together, but on 
separate plots. Indeed, the raw phosphate was not 
used in connection with manure either in Ma»-yland, 
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsyl- 
vania, or Indiana; and in the extensive experiments 
in progress in Illinois the raw phosphate has been 
used, as a rule, not with farm manure, but with 
green manures; and wherever manure has been 
used in connection with the raw phosphate, as in 



"STONE SOUP'* 229 

Ohio, the comparison is made with the same 
amounts of manure applied without phosphate. 

"The Pennsylvania Report for 1895, page 210, 
contains the following statement: 

" 'The yearly average for the twelve years gives 
us a gain per acre of $2.83 from insoluble ground 
bone, $2.45 from insoluble South Carolina rock, 
$1.61 from reverted phosphate, and 48 cents from 
soluble phosphate, thus giving us considerably bet- 
ter results from the two forms of insoluble phos- 
phate than from the reverted or soluble forms.' 

"The Indiana director reports as follows: 

" 'It will be seen that during the first and sec- 
ond years the rock phosphate produced little ef- 
fect, while the acid phosphate very materially In- 
creased the yields. During the third and fourth 
seasons, however, the rock produced very striking 
results, even forging ahead of the acid. This and 
very similar Investigations In progress lead us to be- 
lieve that rock phosphate is a cheap and effective 
source of phosphorus where Immediate returns are 
not required.' 

"In the Ohio experiments eight tons of manure 
per acre were applied once every three years in a 
three-year rotation of corn, wheat, and clover, three 
different fields being used, so that every crop might 
be grown every year. The average yields for the 
thirteen years where manure alone was used were: 

53.1 bushels of corn 
20.6 bushels of wheat 

1.63 tons of hay 

"The average yields on the unfertilized land were: 

34.2 bushels of corn 
II. 4 bushels of wheat 

1. 1 6 tons of hay 



230 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"If the corn is worth 35 cents a bushel, the wheat 
70 cents, and the hay $6 a ton. In addition to the ex- 
pense of harvesting and marketing, then the total 
value of the manure spread on the land is $1.99 cents 
a ton. 

"Where $1.20 worth of raw phosphate (320 
pounds) were added In connection with the man- 
ure the average yields were as follows : 

61.4 bushels of corn 
26.3 bushels of wheat 

2.23 tons of hay 

"And where $2.40 worth of acid phosphate (320 
pounds) were used with the same amount and kind 
of manure the following average yields were se- 
cured: 

60.2 bushels of corn 

26.5 bushels of wheat 
2.16 tons of hay 

"These are the actual yields, and by any method 
of computation yet proposed, each dollar invested 
in raw phosphate has paid back much more than has 
a dollar invested In acid phosphate." 

"And was the use of the raw phosphate really 
profitable?" asked Mr. West. 

"Well, you might figure that out for yourself," 
Percy replied, "preferably using the average prices 
for your own locality for corn, wheat and clover. 
As I figure It at prices below the ten-year average 
for Illinois, the raw phosphate paid about eight 
hundred per cent, net on the Investment." 

"Eight hundred per cent. ! You must mean eight 
per cent, net." 

"No, Sir, I mean eight hundred per cent, net, 
but you had better take the data and make your 



^ 'STONE SOUP" 231 

own computations. But does It not seem strange 
that, with such positive knowledge as this available, 
many of the Illinois landowners who have managed 
to sell off enough of their original stock of fertility 
in grain or stock at good prices to enable them to 
more than pay for their land, should continue to in- 
vest their surplus in more land with hope that it will 
pay them eight per cent, interest, when they could 
secure many times that much interest from invest- 
ing in the permanent improvement of the land they 
already own?" 

"Perhaps it is not so strange," replied Mr. West. 
"I fear that some of their ancestors did the same 
thing in Virginia and other Eastern States until the 
land became poor, and then of course they were 
'land poor'. But, say, that 'stone soup' wouldn't 
be so bad for those Ohio landowners, would it? I 
should think they would avail themselves of the 
positive information from their experiment station. 
Speaking of soup, I wonder if it isn't time for 
lunch! But tell me; are the Illinois farmers doing 
anything with raw phosphate?" 

"Yes, they are doing something, but by no means 
as much as they ought. About two months ago a 
group of the leading farmers from our section of 
the State went up to Urbana to look over the ex- 
periment fields, some of which have been carried 
on since 1879. The land is the typical corn belt 
prairie, and consequently the results should be of 
very wide application. Well, as a result of that 
day's Inspection of the actual field results, an even 
twelve carloads of raw phosphate were ordered by 
those farmers upon their return home; and I 
learned of another community where ten carloads 
were ordered at once after a similar visit. As an 
average of the last three years the yield of corn on 
those old fields has been 23 bushels per acre where 



232 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

corn has been grown every year without fertiHzing, 
58 bushels where a three-year rotation of corn, oats 
and clover Is followed, and in the same rotation 
where organic matter, limestone, and phosphorus 
have been applied the average yield has been 87 
bushels In grain farming and 90 bushels In live-stock 
farming. 

"I attended the State Farmers' Institute last Feb- 
ruary, and there I met many men who have had 
several years' experience with the raw rock. Usually 
they put on one ton per acre as an Initial applica- 
tion and plow it under with a good growth of 
clover; and, afterward, about one thousand pounds 
per acre every four years will be ample to gradually 
Increase the absolute total supply of phosphorus in 
the soil, even though large crops are removed. 

"A good many of our thinking farm.ers are now 
using one or two cars of raw phosphate every year, 
and they are figuring hard to keep up the organic 
matter and nitrogen. The most encouraging thing 
Is the very marked benefit of the phosphate to the 
clover crop, and of course more clover means more 
corn In grain farming, and more corn and clover 
means more manure in live-stock farming. 

"On the Illinois fields advantage is taken of these 
relations in the developing of systems of perman- 
ent agriculture. You see, If the phosphate pro- 
duces more clover, then more clover can be plowed 
under on that land; or, if the crops are fed, then 
more m.anure can be returned to the phosphated 
land than to the land not treated with phosphate 
and not producing so large crops. Really the phos- 
phate is not given full credit for what it has ac- 
complished in the Ohio experiments; because, while 
the land receiving phosphated manure has produced 
about one-fourth larger crops than the land receiv- 
ing the untreated manure, the actual amounts of 



"STONE SOUP" 233 

manure applied have been the same, whereas one- 
fourth more manure can be produced from the 
phosphated land and if this increased supply of 
manure were returned to the land it would increase 
the supply of nitrogen and thus make still larger 
crop yields possible." 

"That is surely the way it would work out in 
practical farming," said Air. West. I think I did 
not tell you that $4.80 a ton is the lowest quotation 
I have been able to get as yet for ground limestone 
delivered at Blue Mound Station." 

"That would make its use prohibitive," said 
Percy. "You ought to get it for just one-fourth 
of that, or for $1.20 a ton. In Illinois we can get 
it delivered a hundred miles from the quarry for 
$1.20 a ton. It costs no more for a thirty-ton car 
of ground limestone than the farm.er receives for a 
cow; and the cost of a car of fine-ground natural 
phosphate is about equal to the price of one horse." 



CHAPTER XXXI 

Theories Versus Facts 

PERCY planned to walk to Blue Mound to 
take the three thirty train that Satur- 
day afternoon; but Adelaide's parents 
both insisted that she would willingly 
drive to the station, and the grandmother 
discovered that she needed a certain kind 
of thread which Adelaide could then also get at the 
store. 

**Certainly," said Adelaide, with some merri- 
ment, "I always enjoy taking our departing guests 
to the train." 

"Very well," replied Percy. "If you must go to 
get the thread and will permit me to be the coach- 
man, I shall be satisfied, for you will be home 
early." 

"Then we will take the colts and buckboard, and 
I shall be home in less than twenty minutes after 
your train leaves the station." 

"I think I have missed several days of your beau- 
tiful 'Indian Summer,' because of my trip to the 
North," Percy remarked to Mr. West as they sat on 
the broad veranda waiting for the hour of two thirty 
when the colts were to be ready for the driv^e. 

"I wish you might have been with us while Pro- 
fessor Barstow was here," replied Mr. West, "not 
only because of the mild autumn weather we have 
had, but also because Professor Barstow has some 
ideas about questions of soil fertility that are very 
different from those you hold. He says a young 
man from Washington gave a lecture at his college 
down in North Carolina, in which he informed 

234 



THEORIES VERSUS FACTS 235 

them that the cause of infertility of soils is a poison- 
ous substance excreted by the plant itself, and that 
this can be overcome by changing from one crop to 
another because the excreta of one plant, while 
poisonous to that plant, will not be poisonous to 
other plants of a different kind. Thus, by rotation 
of crops, good crops could be grown indefinitely on 
the same land without the addition of plant food. 
He said that the soil water alone dissolved plenty 
of plant food from all soils for the production of 
good crops, and that the supply of plant food will 
be permanently maintained, because the plant food 
contained in the subsoil far below where the roots 
go is being brought to the surface by the rise of the 
capillary moisture, and that there is in fact a steady 
tendency toward an accumulation of plant food in 
the surface soil. He said that it is never necessary 
to apply fertilizing material to any soil for the pur- 
pose of increasing the supply of plant food in that 
soil. He admitted that applications of fertilizers 
sometimes produce increased crop yields, but that 
the effect was due to the power of the fertilizer to 
destroy the toxic substances excreted by the plants, 
and this is really the principal effect of potash, phos- 
phates, and nitrates, and also of farm manure and 
green manures. Humus, he said, is one of the 
very best substances for destroying these toxic ex- 
creta, although they had some other things which 
were as good or better than any sort of fertilizing 
materials. He mentioned especially a substance 
called pyrogallol, which cost $2.00 a pound, and 
of course it could not be applied on a large scale; 
but it was as good a fertilizer as anything, although 
it contains nothing but carbon, oxygen, and hydro- 
gen, which, as you explained to me when you were 
here before, the plants secure in abundance from 
air and water. This information had been secured 



236 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

in the laboratories at Washington by growing wheat 
seedlings in water culture for twenty-day periods." 

"I have already heard something of those theo- 
ries," said Percy, "but I shall be glad to have you 
tell me more about them. As I understand them, 
we need only to rotate and cultivate and our lands 
should always continue to produce bountiful crops. 
Is that correct?" 

"I understand that is the theory," replied Mr. 
West, "but I know it is not correct, for my grand- 
father used to grow two or three times as much 
wheat per acre as I can grow, and I rotate much 
more than he did. In fact I can grow only ten to 
fifteen bushels of wheat per acre once in ten years, 
whereas he grew from twenty-five to forty bushels 
per acre in a five-year rotation; and I don't see 
that there is any particular connection between the 
growing of wheat seedlings in small pots or bottles 
for a few twenty-day periods and the growing of 
crops in soils during successive seasons. No, I don't 
take any stock in their theories. I think they are 
watered, or perhaps I should say hydrated, in de- 
ference to science. But I would like to know about 
this question of plant food coming up from below. 
That would be a happy solution of the fertilizer 
problem." 

"It is true," said Percy, "that soluble salts are 
brought to the surface in the rise of moisture by 
capillarity in times of partial drouth; and in the 
arid regions where the small amount of water that 
falls in rain or snow leaves the soil only by evapor- 
ation, because there is never enough to produce un- 
derdrainage, the salts tend to accumulate at the 
surface. The alkali conditions in the arid or semi- 
arid regions of the West are thus produced. But 
in humid sections where more or less of the rain- 
fall leaves the soil as underdrainage the regular 



THEORIES VERSUS FACTS 237 

loss by leaching is so much in excess of the rise 
by capillarity that soils which are not effected by 
erosion or overflow steadily decrease in fertility 
even under natural conditions, with no cultivation 
and no removal of crops. Of course this applies 
at first only to the mineral plant foods, as phos- 
phorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. While 
mineral supplies are abundant in the surface soil, 
there may be a large accumulation of organic mat- 
ter and nitrogen, especially because of the growth 
of wild legumes, which are very numerous and in 
places very abundant, especially on some of the vir- 
gin prairies of the West. However, as the pro- 
cess of leaching proceeds there comes a time when 
the growth of the native vegetation is limited be- 
cause of a deficiency in some essential mineral plant 
food, such as phosphorus, or the limestone com- 
pletely disappears and soil acidity develops which 
greatly lessens the growth of the legumes. 

"Decomposition of organic matter begins almost 
as soon as any part of the plant ceases to live, and 
there is certain to come a time when the rate of de- 
composition and loss exceeds the rate of fixation 
and accumulation; and from that time on the or- 
ganic matter and nitrogen as well as the mineral 
plant foods continue to decrease in the surface, un- 
til finally the natural barrens are developed, such 
as are found in different sections of the World and 
in some places even where the rainfall is sufficient 
for abundant crops." 

"Yes, Sir," said Mr. West. "I know that is true. 
I have visited Tennessee and I know there are 
some extensive areas there of practically level up- 
land which have always been considered too poor 
to justify putting under cultivation, and they are 
called the 'Barrens\ 

"I know about those barren lands, too," said 



238 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

Percy. "Our teacher of soil fertility in college told 
us that a farm is more^ than a piece of the earth's 
surface. He said if we only wanted to get a large 
level tract of upland where the climate is mild and 
the rainfall abundant and where all sorts of crops 
do well on good soil, including the wonderful cot- 
ton crop which brings a hundred dollars for a 
thousand pounds, while corn brings forty dollars 
for a hundred bushels,— well, he said we could go 
to the Highland Rim of Tennessee where, accord- 
ing to analyses reported in 1897 by the Tennessee 
Experiment Station the surface soil of the 'Bar- 
rens' contains eighty-seven pounds of phosphorus 
and the subsoil sixty-one pounds of phosphorus per 
acre, counting two million pounds of soil in each 
case. He said, if we didn't like that we might go 
into the Great Central Basin of Tennessee or the 
famous Blue Grass Region of Kentucky and find land 
that is still extremely productive and more valuable 
than ever, even after a hundred years of cultiva- 
tion, and buy land containing from three thousand 
to fifteen thousand pounds of phosphorus per acre." 

"I know both of those sections very well," said 
Mr. West. "But doesn't it seem strange that the 
scientists at Washington would teach as they do? 
Why doesn't the plant food accumulate in the sur- 
face soil of those barrens? surely they have been 
lying there long enough, with no crops whatever re- 
moved, so that they ought to have become very 
rich. I wish I had known about their phosphorus 
content so I could have told Professor Barstow. He 
was quite carried away with the Washington 
theory." 

"You ought not for a moment call it the 'Wash- 
ington' theory," said Percy; "and neither is it pro- 
mulgated by scientists, but rather by two or three 
theorists who are upheld by our greatest living op- 



THEORIES VERSUS FACTS 239 

timist. Science, Sir, is a word to be spoken of al- 
ways with the greatest respect. Of course you know 
its meaning?" 

"Yes, I know it comes from the Latin scire, to 
know." 

"Then science means knowledge; it does not 
mean theory or hypothesis, but absolute and posi- 
tive knowledge. Is there any uncertainty as to the 
instant when the next eclipse will appear? No, 
none whatever. Science means knowledge, and 
men are scientists only so far as they have absolute 
knowledge, and to that extent every farmer is a 
scientist. 

"Nevertheless the erroneous teaching so widely 
promulgated by the federal Bureau of Soils is un- 
doubtedly a most potent influence against the adop- 
tion of systems of positive soil improvement in the 
United States, because it is disseminated from the 
position of highest authority. Other peoples have 
ruined other lands, but in no other country has the 
powerful factor of government influence ever been 
used to encourage the farmers to ruin their lands." 



CHAPTER XXXII 

Guessing and Gassing 

" jA S we were riding to Montplain yester- 
/^L day," said Adelaide to Percy, soon 

/j^ after they started for Blue Mound, 

J jk "Professor Barstow told me that in 
his opinion all that was needed to re- 
deem these old lands of Virginia and 
the Carolinas is plenty of efficient labor, such as he 
thinks we had before the war. I know papa does 
not agree with him in that, but Professor said that 
soils do not wear out if well cultivated, that in New 
England they grow as large crops as ever, and that 
in Europe, on the oldest lands the crop yields are 
very much larger than in the United States; and 
in fact that the European countries are producing 
about twice as large crops as they did a hundred 
years ago. He thinks it is because they do their 
work more thoroughly than we do. He says that 
'a little farm well tilled' is the key to the solution 
of our difficulties." 

"That might seem to be a good guess as to the 
probable relation of cause and effect," replied 
Percy, "but we ought not to overlook some well 
known facts that have an important bearing. It is 
exactly a hundred years since DeSaussure of France, 
first gave to the world a clear and correct and al- 
most complete statement concerning the require- 
ments of plants for plant food and the natural 
sources of supply. Sir Humphrey Davy, Baron 
von Liebig, Lawes and Gilbert, and Hellriegel fol- 
lowed DeSaussure and completely filled the nine- 
teenth century with accumulated scientific facts re- 
lating to soils and plant growth. 

240 



GUESSING AND GASSING 241 

"Sir John Bennett Lawes, the founder of the 
Rothamsted Experiment Station, the oldest In the 
world, on his own private estate at Harpenden, 
England, began his Investigations In the interest of 
practical agricultural science soon after coming Into 
possession of Rothamsted In 1834. In 1843 he as- 
sociated with him In the work Doctor Joseph Hen- 
ry Gilbert, and for fifty-seven years those two great 
men labored together gathering agricultural facts. 
Sir John died In 1900, and Sir Henry the following 
year. 

"That the people of Europe have made some 
use of the science thus evolved Is evident from the 
simple fact that they are taking out of the United 
States every year about a million tons of our best 
phosphate rock for which they pay us at the point 
of shipment about five million dollars; whereas, If 
this same phosphate were applied to our own soils 
that already suffer for want of phosphorus, It would 
make possible the production of nearly a billion 
dollars' worth of corn above what these soils can 
ever produce without the addition of phosphorus. 
And our phosphate Is only a part of the phosphate 
Imported Into Europe. They also produce rock 
phosphate from European mines, and great quan- 
tities of slag phosphate from their phosphatic Iron 
ores. 

"They feed their own crops and large amounts 
of imported food stuffs, and utilize all fertilizing 
material thus provided for the Improvement of 
their own lands. Legume crops are grown In great 
abundance and are often plowed under to help the 
land. 

"Do you wonder why the wheat yield In Eng- 
land is more than thirty bushels per acre while that 
of the United States Is less than fourteen bushels? 
Because England produces only fifty million bushels 



14^ THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

of wheat, while she imports two hundred million 
bushels of wheat, one hundred million bushels of 
corn, nearly a billion pounds of oil cake, and other 
food stuffs, from which large quantities of manure 
are made; and, in addition to this, England imports 
and uses much phosphate and other commercial 
plant food materials. 

"Germany imports great quantities of wheat, 
corn, oil cake, and phosphates, and thus enriches 
her cultivated soil, and Germany's principal export 
is two billion pounds of sugar, which contains no 
plant food of value, but only carbon, oxygen, and 
hydrogen, secured from air and water by the sugar 
beet. 

"Denmark produces four million bushels of 
wheat, imports five million bushels of wheat, fifteen 
million bushels of corn, fifteen million bushels of 
barley, eight hundred million pounds of oil cake, 
eight hundred million pounds of mill feed, and 
other food stuffs, phosphate, etc., and exports 
one hundred and seventy-five million pounds of 
butter, which contains no plant food of value, 
but sells for much more than these imports cost. 

"Italy applies to her soils every year about a 
million tons of phosphates, which contain nearly 
twice as much phosphorus as is removed from the 
land in all the crops harvested and sold from the 
farms of Italy. 

"The very good yields of the crops of New Eng- 
land are attributable to large use of fertilizing ma- 
terials, in part made from food stuffs shipped in 
from the West; and the high development of the 
certain lands of Europe and New England has been 
possible under the system followed only because the 
areas concerned are small. Thus, the average 
acreage of corn in Rhode Island and Connecticut is 
less than three townships, or less than one-tenth as 



GUESSING AND GASSING 243 

much corn land In the two States as the area of 
single counties In the Illinois corn belt. 

"Did you ever hear of the 'Egypt' we have out 
West, Miss West?" 

"Out West, Miss West," she repeated. "That 
Is too much repetition of the same word to make a 
good sentence. I like 'Miss Adelaide' better; I do 
get tired of hearing West and Westover over and 
over. Yes, I have heard of the 'Egypt' you have 
out West. Is It near Illinois?" 

"Near Illinois? Why, Miss Adelaide, I am sur- 
prised that you should even know about the crop 
yields of Rhode Island and not know where 'Egypt' 
is. Let me Inform you that 'Egypt' Is in Illinois, 
and our 'Egypt' Is a country as large as thirteen 
states the size of Rhode Island. Cairo is the Capi- 
tol, and Alexandria, Thebes, and Joppa are all near 
by. Tamm and Buncombe, and Goreville and 
Omega are also among our promising cities of 
'Egypt,' although you may not so easily associate 
them with the ancient world." 

"Well I know where Cairo is," Adelaide replied, 
"but if your 'Egypt' is on the map you will have to 
show me. I know now that 'Egypt' is In Southern 
Illinois, but how do you separate 'Egypt' from the 
rest of the State?" 

"We make no such separation," said Percy. 
"But to find 'Egypt' on the map, you need only take 
the State of Illinois and substract therefrom all 
that part of the corn belt situated between the Mis- 
sissippi River and the west line of Indiana. The 
southern point of 'Egypt' Is at Cairo, the Capitol, 
and it is bounded on the east, south, and west, by 
the Wabash, the Ohio, and the Mississippi; but the 
north line Is not only Imaginary, but It is movable. 
In fact It is always just a few miles farther south, 
but I think all 'Egyptians' will agree that a sand 



244 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

bar which is being formed below Cairo between the 
Ohio and the Mississippi is truly 'Egyptian' terri- 
tory. If you ever visit in the West do not fail to 
see 'Egypt.' 

"I really hope I may, sometime," she replied. 
"We have relatives who claim to live in Tennessee, 
Kentucky, and Missouri, but I think possibly they 
may all be 'Egyptians,' from what you have told 
me about the vast area of that great fairy empire. 
I know I would dearly love to go there." 

" 'Egypt' Is the wheat belt and the fruit belt of 
Illinois," Percy continued. "One of the grand old 
men of Illinois, Colonel N. B. Morrison, who was 
for years a trustee of the State University, used to 
be called upon for an address whenever he was 
present at Convocation. He always stated proud- 
ly that he lived in the 'Heart of Egypt.' He said 
the soil there was not so rich perhaps as in the 
corn belt, but that with plenty of hard work they 
were able to live and to produce the finest fruit and 
the greatest men in America. He said they had 
to work both the top and bottom of their soil, and 
he explained that they harvested wheat and apples 
from the top, and then went down about 600 feet 
and harvested ten thousand tons of coal to the acre, 
and still left enough to support the earth. I have 
heard him say that when he was born there was not 
a mile of railroad in the United States, and that he 
had, during his own lifetime, witnessed the prac- 
tical agricultural ruin of almost whole States. He 
used to plead for the University to send some of 
her scientific men to help them to solve the prob- 
lem of restoring the fertility of their soils down in 
'Egypt;' and I am glad to say that finally the State 
appropriated sufficient funds so that the Illinois 
Experiment Station is rapidly securing the exact in- 
formation needed to make those Southern Illinois 



GUESSING AND GASSING 245 

lands richer than they ever were. 

*'I spent several days in 'Egypt' last month and 
I am planning to make another trip down there 
next week before deciding definitely about purchas- 
ing our poor land farm. I am not sure but the 
land of 'Egypt' is as poor as we ought to try to 
build up considering our limited means." 

Oh, do you think so? But Papa's land is not so 
poor is it?" 

"No, it is not so poor in mineral plant food on 
the sloping areas, but even there it is extremely 
poor in humus and nitrogen. However, I fear I 
could not enjoy farming in irregular patches of 
five or ten acres, and the level lands of Virginia 
and Maryland are so exceedingly poor, that much 
time and money and work will be required to put 
them on a paying basis. There would be no pleas- 
ure or satisfaction in merely robbing other farms 
to build up mine, as some of the properous truck 
farmers and dairymen are doing. I should want 
to practice a system of soil improvement of unlim- 
ited application so that it would not be a curse to 
the agricultural people, as is the case with the man 
who builds up his farm only at the expense of other 
farms. 

"We have been speaking of the development of 
agriculture on the small tracts of cultivable land 
in the great manufacturing States of New Eng- 
land. But, if we would make a fair comparison 
with a State like Illinois, we should consider some 
great agricultural State, as^ Georgia, for example, 
which is also one of the original thirteen. Georgia is 
a larger State than Illinois, and Georgia cultivates 
as many acres of corn and cotton as we cultivate in 
corn. But Georgia land cannot be covered with fer- 
tilizer made from Illinois corn, nor even with sea- 
weed and fish-scrap from the ocean. Her agricul- 



246 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ture must be an independent agriculture, just as 
the agriculture of Russia, India, and China must 
be, just as the agriculture of Illinois must be, and 
as the agriculture of all the great agricultural 
States must be. What is the result to date? The 
average yield of corn in Georgia is down to 1 1 
bushels per acre. This is not for half of one town- 
ship, but the average of four million acres for the 
last ten years; and this in spite of the fact that 
Georgia pays out more for the common acidulated 
manufactured so-called complete commercial fertil- 
izer than any other State." 

"That is appalling," said Adelaide, "but still 
some larger countries are building up their lands, 
such as those of Europe." 

"In large part by the same methods as the New 
England truckers and dairymen are following," he 
replied, "and in comparison with the area and re- 
sources of their colonies and of the other great new 
countries upon which they draw for food and fer- 
tilizer. They are fairly comparable with the 
New England States in this country. Even 
the Empire of Germany is only four-fifths 
as large as Texas. The only country of Eu- 
rope at all comparable with the United States is 
Russia, and in that great country the average yield 
of wheat for the last twenty years is eight and one- 
fourth bushels per acre, even though, as a general 
practice, the land is allowed to lie fallow every 
third year. The average yield for the five famine 
years that have occurred during the twenty-year 
period was six and one-quarter bushels of wheat 
per acre." 

"That is wretched," said Adelaide, "I know 
about the Russian famines for we have made con- 
tributions through our church for their relief, but 
that condition can surely never come to this great 



GUESSING AND GASSING 247 

rich new country, can it?'* 

"It will come just as certainly as we allow our 
soil fertility to decrease and our population to in- 
crease. As a nation we have scarcely lifted a hand 
yet to stop the waste of fertility or to restore ex- 
hausted lands; practically every effort put forth by 
the Federal government along agricultural lines 
having been directed toward better seeds, control 
of Injurious insects and fungous diseases, exploita- 
tion of new lands by drainage and irrigation, popu- 
larly called 'reclamation', although applied only to 
rich virgin soils which can certainly be brought under 
cultivation at any future time either by the Govern- 
ment or by private enterprise. But why should not 
the Federal government make all necessary provi- 
sions to furnish ground limestone and phosphate 
rock at the actual cost of quarrying, grinding, and 
transporting, in order that farmers on these old 
depleted soils may be encouraged to adopt systems 
of soil improvement; or even compelled to adopt 
such systems, just as they are compelled to build 
school houses, bridges, and battleships?" 

"Perhaps the Government would do this," said 
Adelaide, "if the Secretary of Agriculture would 
recommend it." 

"I have heard of the 'hig if/^ Percy replied 
slowly, "but I am afraid this if will beat the rec- 
ord for bigness. His soil theorists continue to as- 
sure him that soils do not wear out, no matter how 
heavily cropped, if they are only rotated and culti- 
vated; and to support their theories they have for- 
saken the data from the most carefully conducted 
and long continued scientific investigations, and in- 
dulged in a game of guessing that the increasing 
productiveness of a few small countries of Europe 
is not due to any necessary addition of plant food. 

"But here is the depot, and I have taken almost 



248 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

an hour to drive three miles. If I had hurried, you 
might have been back home by this time. I am 
afraid I have been selfish in allowing the team to 
walk nearly all of the way, but they will at least be 
fresh for the home trip which you promised to 
make in less than twenty minutes, I remember. 
Now if you will hold the lines, I will run into the 
store to get the thread. I remember the kind; I 
often do such errands for mother." 

"I will wait while you get your ticket and find 
out if the train is on time," said Adelaide, as Percy 
returned with the thread. 

"At least fifty minutes late," he reported, "and 
the agent said he was glad of it for he would need 
about that time to make out such a long-jointed 
ticket as I want. I am rather glad too, for I can 
watch you to the turn in the road on the hill, which 
must be a mile or more, and I will time you. You 
can have six minutes to make that corner." 

"You mean I can have six minutes to get out of 
sight," she suggested. 

"I think you are out of sight," he ventured. 

Adelaide reddened. "I shall have to tell mother 
what slang you use," she said. 

"I hope you will," he retorted, "for I have 
watched her watch you and I am sure she will agree 
with me. But I do feel that I owe you a sincere 
apology for taking up the time we have had to- 
gether with this long discussion of the things that 
are of such special interest to me. I have been 
alone with my mother so much and she is always 
so ready and so able, I may add, to discuss any sort 
of business matter that I fear I have been forget- 
ful of your forbearance." 

"But you really have not," Adelaide replied. "I 
keep books for papa, and I am very much interest- 
ed in these social and economic questions which are 



GUESSING AND GASSING 249 

so fundamental to the perpetuity of our State and 
National prosperity. I have been both entertained 
and instructed by these dicussions; and I might say, 
honored too, that you do not consider me too young 
and foolish to talk of serious subjects." 

"I am sure It Is kind of you to make good excuses 
for me. You have at any rate relieved my mind of 
some burden, but I am sure you are the only wo- 
man I have every known, except my mother, who 
could endure discussions of this sort. I have so 
greatly enjoyed the few short visits I have had 
with you. I wish I might write to you and I shall 
be so much interested to learn what success your 
father has if he begins a system of soil improve- 
ment. Would It be presuming to hope that I might 
hear from you also?" 

"I am papa's stenographer," she replied, "and 
perhaps he will dictate and I will write. We will 
be glad to hear of your safe return, — and you,— 
you might ask papa. Now, I shall soon be out of 
sight." 

"Please don't," begged Percy. "It Is still forty- 
five minutes 'at least', before the train comes. Let 
me go a piece with you. I will leave my suit case 
here and with nothing to carry I shall easily walk 
a mile In twenty minutes. May I drive, please?" 

"No, I will drive. I want to ask you another 
question, and I am afraid you would drive too 
fast. 

"You mentioned some long-continued scientific 
investigations which I assumed referred to the yield 
of crops. What were they?" 

"I meant such investigations as those at Rotham- 
sted and also those conducted at Pennsylvania State 
College. I have some of the exact data here in my 
note book. 

"In 1848, Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert 



250 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

began at Rothamsted, England, two four-year ro- 
tations. One was turnips, barley, fallow, and 
wheat; and the other was turnips, barley, clover, 
and wheat. Whenever the clover failed, which has 
been frequent, beans were substituted. In order that 
a legume crop should be grown every fourth year. 

"The average of the last twenty years represents 
the average yields about fifty years from the be- 
ginning of this rotation. 

"In the legume system, as an average of the last 
twenty years, the use of mineral plant food has 
Increased the yield of turnips from less than one- 
half ton to more than twelve tons; increased the 
yield of barley from thirteen and seven-tenths bushels 
to twenty-two and two-tenths bushels; increased the 
yield of clover (when grown) from less than one- 
half ton to almost two tons; Increased the yield of 
beans (when grown) from sixteen bushels to twenty- 
eight and three-tenths bushels; and Increased the 
yield of wheat from twenty-four and three-tenths 
bushels to thirty-eight and four-tenths bushels per 
acre. 

"In the legume system the minerals applied have 
more than doubled the value of the crops produced, 
have paid their cost, and made a net profit of one 
hundred and forty per cent, on the Investment, in 
direct comparison with the unfertilized land. 

"If we compare the average yield of turnips 
barley, clover, and wheat of the last twenty years 
with the yield of turnips in 1848, barley In 1849, 
clover In 1850, and wheat In 1851, we find that on 
the unfertilized land In this rotation of crops In 
fifty years the yield of turnips has decreased from 
ten tons to one-half ton, and the yield of barley has 
decreased from forty-six to fourteen bushels, the 
yield of clover has decreased from two and eight- 
tenths tOHS per acre to less than one-half ton, while 



GUESSING AND GASSING 25 1 

the yield of wheat has decreased only from thirty 
bushels to twenty-four bushels. As a general aver- 
age the late yields are only one-third as large as 
they were fifty years before on the same land. 
Wheat grown once In four years has been the only 
crop worth raising on the unfertilized land during 
the last twenty years, and even the wheat crop has 
distinctly decreased in yield; although where min- 
eral plant food was applied the yield has Increased 
from thirty bushels, in 185 i, to thirty-eight bushels 
as an average of the last twenty years. In the fallow 
rotation on the unfertilized land the yield of wheat 
averaged thirty-four and five-tenths bushels during 
the first twenty years (1848 to 1867) and twenty- 
three and five-tenths bushels during the last twenty 
years. 

"On another Rothamsted field the phosphorus 
actually removed in fifty-five crops from well-fertil- 
ized land is two-thirds as much as the total phos- 
phorus now contained In the plowed soil of ad- 
joining untreated land. 

"In the early 8o's the Pennsylvania Agricultural 
Experiment Station began a four-year crop rotation. 
Including corn, oats, wheat, and mixed clover and 
timothy. 

"There are five plots In each of four different 
fields that have received no applications of plant 
food from the beginning. Thus, every year the 
crops are carefully harvested and weighed from 
twenty measured plots of ground that receive no 
treatment except the rotation of crops. The dif- 
ference between the average of the first twelve 
years and the average of the second twelve years 
should represent the actual change In productive 
power during a period of twelve years. These 
averages show that the yield of corn has decreased 
from forty-one and seven-tenths bushels to twenty- 



252 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

seven and seven-tenths bushels; that the yield of 
oats has decreased from thirty-six and seven-tenths 
bushels to twenty-five bushels; that the yield of 
wheat has decreased only from thirteen and three- 
tenths bushels to twelve and eight-tenths bushels; 
and that the yield of hay has decreased from three 
thousand seventy pounds to two thousand one hun- 
dred and eighty pounds. 

"As a general average of these four crops the 
annual value of produce from one acre has de- 
creased from $11.05 to $8.18. Here we have In- 
formation which Is almost if not quite equal In 
value to that from the Agdell rotation field at 
Rothamsted. While the Rothamsted experiments 
cover a period of sixty years, each crop was grown 
but once In four years; whereas, in the Pennsyl- 
vania experiments, there have been four different 
series of plots, so that in twenty-four years there 
have been twenty-four crops of corn, twenty-four 
crops of oats, twenty-four crops of wheat, and 
twenty-four crops of hay. 

"Under this four-year rotation the value of the 
crops produced has decreased twenty-six per cent. 
In twelve years. What Influence will impress that 
fact upon the minds of American landowners? A 
loss amounting to more than one-fourth of the pro- 
ductive power of the land in a rotation with clover 
seeded every fourth year! This one fact is the 
mathematical result of four hundred and eighty 
other facts obtained from twenty different pieces 
of measured land during a period of twenty-four 
years. 

"As an average of these twenty-four years, the 
addition of mineral plant food produced increases 
In crop yields above the unfertilized land as fol- 
lows : 



GUESSING AND GASSING 253 

Corn increased forty-five per cent. 
Oats increased thirty-two per cent. 
Wheat increased forty-two per cent. 
Hay increased seventy-seven per cent. 

"As a general average of the four crops for the 
twenty-four years, the produce where mineral plant 
food is applied, was forty-nine per cent, above the 
yields of the unfertilized land, although the same 
rotation of crops was practiced in both cases," 

"Those are some of the absolute facts of science 
secured for practical application in the adoption 
and development of definite systems of permanent 
prosperous agriculture, and they sliould be made to 
serve this greatest and most Important industry just 
as the established facts of mathematical and physi- 
cal science are made to serve in engineering." 

"I am glad to know about those long-continued 
experiments," said Adelaide. "They are of fascin- 
ating interest. I have been so sorry for grandma, 
and for papa and mamma, because of their increas- 
ing discouragement over our farm. I do hope we 
may profit from this fund of accumulated informa- 
tion which has already been secured from long 
years of investigation. Surely we must endeavor 
to avoid in America the awful conditions that al- 
ready exist in the older agricultural countries, where 
the lands are depleted and the people are brought 
to greater poverty than even here in Virginia. 

"But we have already reached the turn, and you 
have a mile to walk. How much time have you?" 

"Thirty minutes yet," said Percy. "Wait just a 
moment. Have you read Lincoln's stories?" 

"Many of them, yes," 

"Here is the best one he ever told, I have copied 
it on a card. He told it to a meeting of farmers at 
the close of an address in which he urged them to 



254 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

study the science of agriculture and to adopt bet- 
ter methods of farming: 

"An Eastern monarch once charged his wise men 
to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and 
which should be true and appropriate in all times 
and situations. They presented him the words, 
'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it ex- 
presses ! How chastening in the hour of pride ! 
How consoling in the depths of affliction! 'And 
this, too, shall pass away.' And yet, let us hope, it 
is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the 
best cultivation of the physical world beneath and 
around us, and the best intellectual and moral world 
within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and 
political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall 
be onward and upward, and which, while the earth 
endures, shall not pass away." 

"I agree with you that it is his best story," said 
Adelaide, as Percy finished reading and placed the 
card in her hand. "Now you must go or I shall 
insist upon taking you back to the station." 

"I shall stand here and time you till you reach 
the next turn," he replied. "Then you will be in 
sight of Westover. One I Two I Three! Go I" 



CHAPTER XXXIIl 
The Diagnosis and Prescription 

winterbine, illinois, 
December 4, 1903. 
Mr. T. O. Thornton, 
Blairvllle, Va. 

MY Dear Sir:— I beg to report that I 
returned home a few days ago and 
found my mother well and busy as 
usual. We have definitely decided 
that we will not accept your kind of- 
fer to sell us a part of your farm, 
but we appreciate nevertheless the sacrifice, at least 
from the standpoint of sentiment, which Mrs. 
Thornton and Miss Russell were willing to make, 
in order to permit us to secure such a farm as we 
might want in a splendid situation. 

As a matter of fact we are thinking very seri- 
ously of purchasing a farm in Southern Illinois. 
My mother much prefers to remain in Illinois, and 
for some reasons I have the same preference on her 
account. 

While in Washington I was fortunate enough to 
find that a soil survey had been completed for your 
county and also that a partial ultimate analysis had 
been made of the common loam soil of your farm, 
such as we sampled. Following are the number of 
pounds per acre for the surface soil to a depth of six 
and two-third inches,— that is, for two million pounds 
of soil. 

610 pounds of phosphorus 
13,200 pounds of potassium 
255 



1S(> THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

1,200 pounds of magnesium 
3,430 pounds of calcium 

As compared with a normal fertile soil your 
land is very deficient In phosphorus and magnesium, 
and, as you know, the soil is acid. It is better sup- 
plied with potassium than with any other important 
element. 

I would suggest that you make liberal use of 
magnesian limestone, — at least two tons per acre 
every four or five years, — and the initial applica- 
tion might better be five or even ten tons per acre if 
you are ready to make such an investment. 

I am sorry that the nitrogen content of the soil 
was not determined, or at least not published in the 
bulletin. There can be no doubt, however, that 
your soil is extremely deficient in organic matter 
and nitrogen, and you will understand that liberal 
use should be made of legume crops. The known 
nitrogen content of legumes and other crops will 
be a help to you in planning your crop rotation and 
the disposition of the crops grown. 

As to phosphorus. It is safe to say that in the 
long run fine-ground rock phosphate will prove the 
best investment; but for a few years It might be 
best to make some use of acid phosphate in addi- 
tion to the raw rock, at least until you are ready to 
begin turning under more organic matter with the 
phosphate. 

There is only one other suggestion: If you wish 
to make a start toward better crops as soon as pos- 
sible, you may well use some kalnit, — say six hun- 
dred pounds per acre every four or five years, pre- 
ferably applied with the phosphate. In the absence 
of decaying organic matter, the potassium of the 
soil becomes available very slowly. The kalnit fur- 
nishes both potassium and magnesium in soluble 



DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION 257 

form and It also contains sulfur and chlorin. As 
soon as you can provide plenty of decaying organic 
matter you will probably discontinue the use of 
both kainit and acid phosphate. If you sell only 
grains and animal products, the amount of potas- 
sium sold from the farm is very small compared 
with your supply of that element, which would be 
sufficient for one hundred bushels of corn per acre 
for seven hundred years. 

I have some doubt if it will be worth the expense 
involved to have the samples of subsurface and sub- 
soil analyzed at this time ; but you might save them 
for future use if desired. 

I shall always appreciate the kindness shown me 
by being permitted to enjoy your hospitality and to 
profit from the information you were so able to 
give me concerning the history and general char- 
acter of your lands. 

My mother asks to have her kind regards ex- 
tended to you and yours. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Percy Johnston. 

Westover, January 2, 1904. 
Percy Johnston, Esq., 
Winterbine, 111. 

My Dear Friend:— We were all pleased to re- 
ceive your letter informing us of your safe journey 
back' to Illinois. I had hoped that you might find 
a piece of land here in the East which would suit you ; 
but I am not surprised that you and your mother 
should prefer to remain in Illinois, because of your 
former associations and your better knowledge of 
the Western conditions. Northern men who come 
South often have serious difficulty to manage our 
negro labor. 

I am surprised, however, that you were able to 



^5^ THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

purchase, even in Southern Illinois, such prairie land 
as you describe for the price of $i8 an acre. I sup- 
pose $190 an acre for your corn belt farm was a 
good price, although it is commonly reported to us 
that Illinois land is selling for $150 to $200 an 
acre. 

Now, in regard to correspondence with Ade- 
laide, let me say that we could have no objection 
whatever, except that it might be misunderstood, 
more especially, of course, by Professor Barstow. 
I do not think I mentioned it to you, but the fact is 
that the Professor and Adelaide are essentially be- 
trothed. I do not know that the final details are 
perfected, but doubtless they are, for they have 
been much together during the Christmas weeks. 
The Barstows, as you probably know, are still among 
the most prominent people of North Carolina. Ade- 
laide is young yet and we respect her reticence, but 
her mother and I have both given our consent and 
Professor Barstow has every reason to be satis- 
fied with the reception he invariably receives from 
Adelaide. 

I only mention this matter to you that you may 
understand why misunderstanding might arise in 
case of such correspondence as you suggest, even 
though, as Adelaide has explained, she has very 
naturally become interested temporarily in some of 
the economic and social questions relating to agri- 
culture, and would unquestionably read your let- 
ters concerning these state and national problems 
with continued interest. I shall hope, however, that 
she may still have that satisfaction, for I am very 
deeply interested in all such questions, and I am 
particularly interested to know more of the details 
of your southern Illinois farm, including the invoice 
of the soil, which you say has been taken by your 
Experiment Station, and especially your definite 



DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION 259 

plans for the Improvement of the land.^ I hope the 
name you have chosen for your farm is not so ap- 
propriate as it would be for some of our old Vir- 
ginia farms. 

I shall also be under renewed obligation to you 
if I may occasionally submit questions concerning 
the best plans for the restoration of Westover to 
its former productiveness. I have decided at least 
to make another trial with alfalfa next summer, 
following the valuable suggestions you gave me. 

In closing let me renew my assurance of our deep 
gratitude for the special service you so nobly ren- 
dered when fiendish danger threatened my daugh- 
ter. We shall always regard you as a gentleman of 
the highest type. 

Very respectfully yours, 

Charles West. 

Percy read this letter hurriedly to the end, and 
then slowly reread it. His mother noticed that he 
absent-mindedly replaced the letter in the envelope 
instead of reading it to her as was his custom. 
However, he laid the letter by her plate and talked 
with her about the corn-shelling which was to be- 
gin as soon as the corn sheller could be brought 
from the neighbor's where Percy had been helping 
to haul the corn from the sheller to the elevator at 
Winterbine. Dinner finished, he hurried out to 
complete the preparations for the afternoon's work. 
We have no right to follow him. His mother only 
saw that he went to the little granary where a few 
loads of corn were to be stored for future use. Yes, 
she saw that he closed the door as he entered. Not 
even his mother could see her son again a child. 
Women and children weep, not men. The heart 
strings draw tight and tighter until they tear or 
snap. The body is racked with the anguish of the 



26o THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

mind. The form reels and sinks to the floor. The 
head bows low. Pent up tears fall like rain.— No, 
that cannot be. Men do not shed tears. If they 
are mental cowards and physical brutes they pass 
from hence by a short and easy route and leave the 
burdens of life to their wives and mothers and dis- 
graced families. If they are Christian men they 
seek the only source of help. 

Mrs. Johnston watched and waited— it seemed 
an hour, but was only a quarter of that time till 
the granary door opened and she saw Percy pass to 
the barn with a step which satisfied her mother's 
eye. 

She drew out the letter, and from a life habit of 
making sure, pressed the envelope to see that It 
contained nothing more. She noted a slip of crum- 
pled paper and drew It out. Upon It was written 
in a penciled scrawl: 

^'Her grandma has not consented.^' 

She read the letter, stood for a moment as In 
meditation, then replaced the slip and letter In the 
envelope, and laid It on Percy's desk. The letter 
was plainly a man's handwriting. The envelope 
was addressed in a bold hand that was clearly not 
Mr. West's writing. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

Planning for Life 

Heart-of-Egypt, Illinois, 
June 1 6, 1904. 
Mr. Charles West, 
Blue Mound, Va. 

MY Dear Sir :— I have delayed writing to 
you in regard to the plans for Poor- 
land Farm, until I could feel that we 
are able at least to make an outline of 
tentative nature. The labor problem 
of a farm of three hundred and 
twenty acres is of course very different from that on 
forty acres, and we are not yet fully decided re- 
garding our crop rotation and the disposition of 
the crops produced (or hoped for). I realize that 
to rebuild in my life what another has torn down 
during his life is a task the end of which can hardly 
be even dimly foreshadowed. Some friends are al- 
ready beginning to ask me what results I am get- 
ting, and they apparently feel that we must succeed 
or fail with a trial of a full season. I have said to 
them that I have no objection whatever to dis- 
cussing our plans at any time, so far as we are yet 
able to make plans, but that I shall not be ready to 
discuss results with anyone until we begin to secure 
crop yields in the third rotation. This means that 
I am not expecting the benefits of a six-year rota- 
tion of crops before the rotation has been actually 
practiced. You will understand of course that, if 
all your land had been cropped with little or no 
change, for all its history, you would require six or 
eight years' time before you would be able to grow 

?6i 



262 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

a crop of corn on land that had been pastured for 
six or eight years; but some people seem to take it 
for granted that one can adopt a six-year rotation 
and enjoy the full benefits of it the first season. 

I remember that you were surprised that I could 
buy a level upland farm even in this part of Illinois 
for $i8 an acre; but you will probably be more sur- 
prised to learn that this farm had not paid the 
previous owners two per cent. Interest on $i8 an 
acre as an average of the last five years. In fact, 
sixty acres of it had grown no crops for the last 
five years. It was largely m.anaged by tenants on 
the basis of share rent, and because of this I have 
been able to secure the records for several years. 

I at least had some satisfaction in purchasing 
this farm, for the real estate men were left without 
a single ''talking point." I insisted that I wanted 
the poorest prairie farm In "Egypt," and whenever 
they began to tell me that the soil on a certain farm 
was really above the average, or that the land had 
been well cared for until recently, or that It had 
been fertilized a good deal, etc., I at once informed 
them that any advantage of that sort completely 
disqualified any farm for me; and that they need 
not talk to me about any farms except those that 
represented the poorest and most abused In South- 
ern Illinois. 

I may say, however, that $20 an acre Is about the 
average price of the average land. I had an op- 
tion on a three hundred and sixty acre farm cor- 
nering the corporation limits of the County Seat 
for $30 an acre, and all agreed that the farm was 
above the average in quality. 

Heart-of-Egypt is a small station on the double 
track of the Chicago-New Orelans line of the Il- 
linois Central, and there are three other railroads 
passing through our County Seat. Poorland Farm 



PLANNING FOR LIFE 263 

is less than two miles from Heart-of-Egypt and 
only five miles from the County Seat, with level 
roads to both. 

As to the soil, I may say that in some respects 
it is poorer than yours, but in others not so poor. 
The amounts of plant food contained in six and 
two-thirds inches of the surface soil of an acre, 
representing two million pounds of soil, are as fol- 
lows : 

2,880 pounds of nitrogen 
840 pounds of phosphorus 
24,940 pounds of potassium 

6,740 pounds of magnesium 
14,660 pounds of calcium 

By referring to the invoice of your most com- 
mon land, you will see that Westover is richer in 
phosphorus, in magnesium, and in calcium, than 
Poorland Farm. But, while your soil contains a 
half more of that rare element phosphorus, ours 
contains a half more of the abundant element po- 
tassium. In the supply of nitrogen we have a dis- 
tinct advantage, because our soil contains nearly 
three times as much as your most common culti- 
vated land, and even twice as much as your level 
upland soil, which you consider too poor for farm- 
ing, but in which phosphorus and not nitrogen must 
be the first limiting element, the same as with ours. 

The fact is that the nitrogen problem in the East 
was one of the reasons why we have chosen to lo- 
cate in Southern Illinois. I am confident that the 
level lands I saw about Blairville and over in Mary- 
land are more deficient in organic matter and ni- 
trogen than your uncultivated level upland, and 
probably even more deficient than your common 
gently sloping cultivated lands, because of your 



264 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

long rotation with much opportunity for nitrogen 
fixation by such legumes as will grow in your 
meadows and pastures, including the red clover 
which you regularly sow, the white clover, which 
is very persistent, and the Japan clover, which it 
seems to me has really benefited you more than the 
others. 

To me a difference in nitrogen content of two 
thousand pounds per acre signifies a good deal. It 
plainly signifies a hundred years' of "working the 
soil for all that's in it," beyond what has yet been 
done to our "Egypt." The cost of two thousand 
pounds of nitrogen in sodium nitrate would be at 
least $300 and even that would not include the or- 
ganic matter which has value for its own sake be- 
cause of the power of its decomposition products 
to liberate the mineral elements from the soil, as 
witness the most common upland soils of St. Mary 
county, Maryland, with a phosphorus content re- 
duced to one hundred and sixty pounds per acre in 
tv/o million pounds of the ignited soil. The ten- 
inch plows of Maryland, the twelve-inch of South- 
ern Illinois, the fourteen-inch of the corn belt, and 
the sixteen-inch of the newer regions of the North- 
west, signify something as to the influence of or- 
f:^anic matter upon the horse power required in till- 
nge; and the organic matter also has a value be- 
cause it increases the power of the soil to absorb 
and retain moisture and to resist surface washing 
and "running together" to form the hard surface 
crust. 

To think of applying two thousand pounds of ni- 
trogen by plowing under two hundred tons of man- 
ure or forty tons of clover per acre at least requires 
a "big think," as my Swede man would say. 

Of course, with our western life and cosmopoli- 
tan population, where "a man's a man for a' that," 



PLANNING FOR LIFE 265 

mother feels that It would not be easy for us to fit 
into your somewhat distinctly stratified society. We 
would not be "colored" If we could, and perhaps 
we could not be aristocratic if we would; and the 
opportunity to become, or, perhaps I should say, 
to remain, "poor white trash," though wide open, is 
not very alluring. I realize, of course, that there 
are some whole-souled people like the West's and 
Thornton's, but I also found some of the tnbe of 
Jones, and I have much doubt as to the social stand- 
ing of one who would feel obliged to demonstrate 
that he could spread more manure In a day than his 
hired nigger. 

My Swede and I are like brothers; we clean 
stables together and talk politics, science, and ag- 
riculture. In fact he is as much Interested as I am 
In the building up of Poorland Farm, and has al- 
ready contributed some very practical suggestions. 
I pay him moderate wages and a small percentage 
of the farm receipts after deducting certain expenses 
which he can help to keep as low as possible, such 
as for labor, repairs, and purchase of feed and new 
tools, but without deducting the taxes or interest on 
investment or the cost of any permanent Improve- 
ments, such as the expense for limestone, phos- 
phate, new fences and buildings, and breeding 
stock. 

Referring again to the invoice of the soil, I may 
say that the percentage of the mineral plant foods 
Increases with depth, the same as in your soil, but 
not to such an extent, and with one exception. The 
phosphorus content of our surface soil Is greater 
than that of the subsurface, but below the subsur- 
face the phosphorus again Increases. This Is prob- 
ably due to the fact that the prairie grasses that 
grew here for centuries extracted some phosphorus 
from the subsurface in which their roots fed to 



266 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

some extent, and left it in the organic residues 
which accumulated in the surface soil. 

Aside from the difference in organic matter, the 
physical character of our soil is distinctly inferior 
to the loam soils about Blairville and Leonardtown. 
We have a very satisfactory silt loam surface, but 
the structure of our subsoil is quite objectionable. 
It is a tight clay through which water passes very 
slowly, so slowly that the practicability of using tile- 
drainage is still questioned by the State University, 
although the experiments which the University soil 
investigators have already started in several coun- 
ties here in "Egypt" will ultimately furnish us posi- 
tive knowledge along this line. 

As for me, I purpose making no experiments, 
whatever. I do not see how I or any other farmer 
can afford to put our limited funds into experi- 
ments, especially when we often lack the facilities 
for taking the exact and complete data that are 
needed. It takes time and labor and some equip- 
ment to make accurate measurements, to weigh every 
pound of fertilizer applied and every crop care- 
fully harvested from measured and carefully seed- 
ed areas, especially selected because of their uni- 
form and representative character. I think this is 
public business and it is best done by the State for 
the benefit of all. 

I have heard narrow politicians call it class legis- 
lation to appropriate funds for such agricultural in- 
vestigations, but the fact is that to investigate the 
soil and to insure an abundant use of limestone, phos- 
phate, or other necessary materials required for 
the improvement and permanent maintenance of the 
fertility of the soil is legislation for all the people, 
both now and hereafter. Would that our States- 
man would think as much of maintaining this most 
important national resource, as they do of main- 



PLANNING FOR LIFE 267 

taming our national honor by means of battleships 
and an army and navy supported at an expense of 
three hundred million dollars a year, sufficient to 
furnish ten tons of limestone to every acre of Vlr- 
gina land, an amount twenty times the Nation's 
appropriation for agriculture; and even this is 
largely used in getting new lands ready for the 
bleeding process, instead of reviving those that 
have been practically bled to death. 

As for me, I shall simply take the results which 
prove profitable on the accurately conducted ex- 
periment fields of the University of Illinois, one of 
which is located only seven miles from Poorland 
Farm, and on the same type of soil. I shall try to 
profit by that positive information, and await the ac- 
cumulation of conclusive data relating to tile-drain- 
age and other possible improvements of uncertain 
practicability for "Egypt." 

Say, but our soil is acid! The University soil 
survey men say that the acidity is positive in the 
surface, comparative in the subsurface, and super- 
lative in the subsoil. Two of them insisted that 
the subsoil has an acid taste. The analysis of a 
set of soil samples collected near Heart-of-Egypt 
shows that to neutralize the acidity of the surface 
soil will require seven hundred and eighty pounds 
of limestone per acre, while three tons are required 
for the first twenty Inches, and sixteen tons for the 
next twenty Inches. The tight clay stratum reaches 
from about twenty to thirty-six Inches. Above this 
Is a flour-like gray layer varying in thickness from 
an inch to ten inches, but below the tight clay the 
subsoil seems to be more porous, and I am hoping 
that we may lay tile just below the tight clay and 
then puncture that clay stratum with red clover 
roots and thus Improve the physical condition of 
the soil. I asked Mr. Secor, a friend who oper- 



268 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ates a coal mine, — and farms for recreation, — if he 
thought alfalfa could be raised on this type of soil. 
He replied: "That depends on what kind of a 
gimlet it has on its tap root." 

Some of the farmers down here tell me confi- 
dentially that "hardpan" has been found on their 
neighbors' farms, but I have not talked with any 
one who has any on his own farm. I am very glad 
the University has settled the matter very much to 
the comfort of us "Egyptians," by reporting that 
no true "hardpan" exists in Illinois, although there 
are extensive areas underlain with tight clay, "of 
whom, as it were, we are which." 

I am glad that the nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying 
bacteria do business chiefly in the surface soil, be- 
cause we are not prepared to correct the acidity to 
any very great depth. 

The present plan is to practice a six-year rota- 
tion on six forty-acre fields, as follows: 

First year— Corn (and legume catch crop). 
Second year— Part oats or barley, part cowpeas 
or soy beans. 

Third year— Wheat. 

Fourth year— Clover, or clover and timothy. 
Fifth year— Wheat, or clover and timothy. 
Sixth year— Clover, or clover and timothy. 

This plan may be a grain system where wheat is 
grown the fifth year, only clover seed being har- 
vested the fourth and sixth years, or it may be 
changed to a live-stock system by having clover and 
timothy for pasture and meadow the last three 
years, which may be best for a time, perhaps, if we 
find it too hard to care for eighty acres of wheat 
on poorly drained land. 

In somewhat greater detail the system may be 



PLANNING FOR LIFE 269 

developed we hope about as follows: 

First year: Corn, with mixed legumes, seeded 
at the time of the last cultivation, on perhaps one- 
half of the field. These legumes may include some 
cowpeas and soy beans and some sweet clover, but 
that is not yet fully decided upon. 

Second year: Oats (part barley, perhaps) on 
twenty acres, cowpeas on ten acres, and soy beans 
on ten acres. The peas and beans are to be seeded 
on the twenty acres where the catch crop of legumes 
is to be plowed under as late in the spring as 
practicable. 

Third year: Wheat with alsike on twenty acres 
and red clover on the other twenty, seeded in the 
early spring. If necessary to prevent the clover or 
weeds from seeding, the field will be clipped about 
the last of August. 

Fourth year: Harvest the red clover for hay and 
the alsike for seed, and apply limestone after plow- 
ing early for wheat. 

Fifth year: Wheat, with alsike and red clover 
seeded and clipped as before. 

Sixth year: Pasture in early summer, then clip 
if necessary to secure uniformity, and later harvest 
the red clover for seed. Manure may be applied 
to- any part of this field from the time of wheat 
harvest the previous year until the close of the pas- 
ture period. Then it may be applied to the alsike 
only until the red clover seed crop is removed, and 
then again to any part of the field, which may also 
be used for fall pasture. To this field the threshed 
clover straw and all other straw not needed for 
feed and bedding will be applied. The application 
of raw phosphate will be made to this field, and 
all of this material plowed under for corn. 

The second six years is to be a repetition of the 
first, except that the alsike and red clover will be in- 



270 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

terchanged, so as to avoid the development of 
clover sickness if possible; and to keep the soil uni- 
form we may interchange the oats with the peas 
and beans. 

This system provides for the following crops 
each year: 

40 acres of corn 
20 acres of oats 
10 acres of cowpeas for hay 
10 acres of soy beans for seed 
80 acres of wheat 
20 acres of red clover for hay 
20 acres of alsike for seed 
20 acres of red clover for seed 
20 acres of alsike for pasture, except from June 
to August 

We also have some permanent pasture which we 
may use at any time that may seem best. If neces- 
sary we may cut all the clover for hay the fourth 
year, and we may pasture all summer the sixth 
year. We can pasture the corn stalks during the 
fall and winter when the ground is in suitable con- 
dition. 

We plan to raise our own horses and perhaps 
some to sell. In addition we may raise a few dairy 
cows for market, but will do little dairying our- 
selves. 

We expect to sell wheat and some corn, and if 
successful we shall sell some soy beans, alsike seed, 
and red clover seed. 

How soon we shall be able to get this system 
fully under way I shall not try to predict; but we 
shall work toward this end unless we think we have 
good reason to modify the plan. 

I hope to make the Initial application of lime- 



PLANNING FOR LIFE 271 

stone five tons per acre, but after the first six years 
this will be reduced to two or three tons. I also 
plan to apply at least one ton per acre of fine- 
ground raw phosphate every six years until the 
phosphorus content of the plowed soil approaches 
two thousand pounds per acre, after which the ap- 
plications will probably be reduced to about one- 
half ton per acre each rotation. 

There are three things that mother and I are 
fully decided upon: 

First, that we shall use ground limestone in suf- 
ficient amounts to make the soil a suitable home 
for clover. 

Second, that we shall apply fine-ground rock 
phosphate in such amounts as to positively enrich 
our soil in that very deficient element. 

Third, that we shall reserve a three-rod strip 
across every forty-acre field as an untreated check 
strip to which neither limestone nor phosphate shall 
ever be applied, and that we shall reserve another 
three-rod strip to which limestone is applied with- 
out phosphate, while the remaining thirty-seven 
acres are to receive both limestone and phosphate. 

Thus we shall always have the satisfaction of 
seeing whatever clearly apparent effects are pro- 
duced by this fundamental treatment, even though 
we may not be able to bother with harvesting these 
check strips separate from the rest of the field. 

We have based our decision regarding the use 
of ground limestone very largely upon the long- 
continued work of the Pennsylvania Agricultural 
Experiment Station as to the comparative effects of 
ground limestone and burned lime, which is sup- 
ported, to be sure, by all comparative tests so far 
as our Illinois soil investigators have been able to 
learn. 

The practicability and economy of using the fine- 



272 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ground natural phosphate has been even more con- 
clusively established, as you already know, by the 
concordant results of half a dozen state experi- 
ment stations. There are only two objections to the 
use of the raw phosphate. One of these is the 
short-sighted plan or policy of the average farmer, 
and the other is the combined influence of about 
four-hundred fertilizer manufacturers who prefer 
to sell, quite naturally, perhaps, tv/o tons of acid 
phosphate for $30, or four tons of so-called "com- 
plete" fertilizer for $70 to $90, rather than to see 
the farmer buy direct from the phosphate mine one 
ton of fine-ground raw rock phosphate in which he 
receives the same amount of phosphorus, at a cost 
of $7 to $9 

Until we can provide a greater abundance of de- 
caying organic matter we may make some tempor- 
ary use of kainit, in case the experiments conducted 
by the state show that it is profitable to do so. 

In a laboratory experiment made at college it 
was shown that when raw phosphate was shaken 
with water and then filtered, the filtrate contained 
practically no dissolved phosphorus; but, if a dilute 
solution of such salts as exist in kainit was used in 
place of pure water, then the filtrate would con- 
tain very appreciable amounts of phosphorus. 

In addition to this benefit, the kainit will furnish 
some readily available potassium, magnesium, and 
sulfur; and, by purchasing kainit in carload lots, 
the potassium will cost us less than it would in the 
form of the more expensive potassium chlorid or 
potassium sulfate purchased in ton lots. Of 
course we do not need this in order to add to our 
total stock of potassium, but more especially I think 
to assist in liberating phosphorus from the raw 
phosphate which is naturally contained in the soil 
and which we shall also apply to the soil, unless the 



PLANNING FOR LIFE 173 

Government permits the fertilizer trusts to get such 
complete control of our great natural phosphate de- 
posits that they make It Impossible for farmers to 
secure the fine-ground rock at a reasonable cost, 
which ought not, I would say, to be more than one 
hundred per cent, net profit above the expense of 
mining, grinding, and transportation. We may feel 
safe upon the matter of transportation rates, for 
the railroads are operated by men of large enough 
vision to see that the positive and permanent main- 
tenance of the fertility of the soil is the key to their 
own continued prosperity, and some of them are al- 
ready beginning to understand that the supply of 
phosphorus Is the master key to the whole Indus- 
trial structure of America; for, with a failing sup- 
ply of phosphorus, neither agriculture nor any de- 
pendent Industry can permanently prosper in this 
great country. 

If we retain the straw on the farm and sell only 
the grain, the supply of potassium in the surface 
soil of Poorland Farm is sufficient to meet the needs 
of a fifty bushel crop of wheat per acre every year 
for nineteen hundred and twenty years, or longer 
than the time that has passed since the Master 
walked among men on the earth; whereas, the total 
phosphorus content of the same soil Is sufficient for 
only seventy such crops, or for as long as the full 
life of one man. Keep In mind that Poorland Farm 
is near Heart-of-Egypt, and that this Is the com- 
mon soil of our "Egytlan Empire", which contains 
more cultivable land than all New England, has the 
climate of Virginia, and a net work of railroads 
scarcely equalled in any other section of this coun- 
try, and in addition It is more than half surrounded 
by great navigable rivers. 

On Poorland Farm there are seven forty-acre 
fields which are at least as nearly level as they 



274 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ought to be to permit good surface drainage, and 
there is no need that a single hill of corn should 
be omitted on any one of these seven fields; and I 
am confident that with an adequate supply of raw 
phosphate rock and magnesian limestone and a lib- 
eral use of legume crops this land can be made to 
pay interest on $300 an acre. 

Why not? At Rothamsted, England, they have 
averaged thirty-eight and four-tenth bushels of 
wheat per acre during the last twenty years in an 
experiment extending over sixty years, and they 
have done this without a forkful of manure or a 
pound of purchased nitrogen. Why not? The 
wheat alone from eighty acres of land, if it yielded 
forty bushels per acre and sold at $1 a bushel, 
would pay nearly five per cent, interest on $300 an 
acre for the entire two hundred and forty acres 
used in my suggested rotation. 

Aye, but there is one other very essential re- 
quirement: To wit, a world of work. 

Hoping to hear from you, and especially about 
your alfalfa, I am, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Percy Johnston. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

Sealed Lips 

NO one realized more than Percy Johns- 
ton that toleration of life itself was 
possible to him only because of the 
world of work that he found always 
at hand in connection with his abid- 
ing faith and interest in the upbuild- 
ing of Poorland Farm. He had accepted Ade- 
laide's sweet smile and lack of apparent disap- 
proval with confidence that he might at least have 
an opportunity to try to win her love. As he was 
permitted at the parting to look for more than an 
instant into those alluring eyes, he had felt so sure 
that they expressed something more than friend- 
ship or gratitude for him. He had felt the more 
confidence because he thought he knew that she 
would not permit him to humiliate himself by ask- 
ing and failing to receive from her father permis- 
sion to write to her, when she could easily in her 
own womanly way have discouraged such a thought 
at once. Had she not insisted upon driving slowly 
back to the turn In the road, and did he not feel the 
absence of a previous reserve? 

Oh, misleading imagination. The will is truly 
the father of thought and faith. Percy knew as he 
parted from Adelaide that he had left with her the 
love of heart and mind of one whose life had de- 
veloped In him the character which does nothing by 
halves. His love had multiplied with the distance 
as he journeyed westward, with a great new pleas- 
ure which life seemed to hold before him and with 
a pardonable confidence In Its achievement. 

He had written Mr. West a week after his re- 
275 



276 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

turn In a way which would not fail of understanding 
if his hopes were justified. The belated reply which 
reached him after the holidays was accepted as final. 
His pride was humiliated and the sweetest dream 
of his life abruptly ended. He felt the more help- 
less and the more deeply wounded because of Mr. 
West's reference to his special service in the pro- 
tection he had once rendered to Adelaide. It con- 
tinually reminded him that, as the highest type of 
gentleman, he should do nothing that could be con- 
strued as an endeavor to take advantage of the con- 
sideration to which that act might seem to entitle 
him. Bound and buried in the deepest dungeon, 
waiting only for the announcement from his keeper 
of the day of his execution. This was his mental 
attitude as the months passed and he began to re- 
ceive an occasional letter from Mr. West in each 
of which he looked for the news of Adelaide's mar- 
riage. 

In Mrs. Johnston a feeling of hatred had devel- 
oped for Adelaide. She was certain that she had 
marred the happiness of her son. The heartless- 
ness of a flirt who could trifle with the affection of 
one who had a right to assume in her an honor 
equal to his own deserved only to be hated with 
even righteous hatred. She saw the scrawled note 
which she knew Percy had not seen, but what did 
it signify? An excentric old lady's penchant for 
match making? Perhaps she was even more guilty 
than the girl in attempting to lead Percy to see in 
Adelaide more than he ought. She might even take 
an old flirt's delight in the mere number of con- 
quests made by her granddaughter. Or was the 
scrawled note slipped into the envelope by a prank- 
playing fourteen-year-old brother? In any case 
was it wise that Percy should see the note? She 
could probably do nothing better than to leave it 



SEALED LIPS 277 

with the letter. Even if the girl were worthy, Percy 
could never hope to win one of her class, whose 
pride of ancestry is their bread of life. It might 
not have been quite so, perhaps, if Percy had only 
selected some more respected profession. Why 
should not he have become a college professor? 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

Hard Times 

WHEN Percy and his mother reached 
Poorland Farm in March they 
found a small frame house needing 
only shingles, paint, and paper to 
make it a fairly comfortable home, 
until they should be able to add such 
conveniences as Percy knew could be installed in the 
country as well as in the city. From the sale of 
corn and some other produce they were able to add 
to the residue of $1,840, which represented the 
difference between the cost of three hundred and 
twenty acres in Egypt and the selling price of forty 
acres in the corn belt. An even $3,000 was left in 
the savings bank at Winterbine. 

"If we can live," said Percy, "just as the other 
'Egyptians' must live, and save our $3,000 for 
limestone and phosphate, I believe we shall win 
out. Through the efforts of the Agricultural Col- 
lege and the Governnor of the State the convicts in 
the Southern Illinois Penitentiary have been put to 
quarrying stone, and large crushers and grinders 
have been installed, and the State Board of Prison 
Industries is already beginning to ship ground lime- 
stone direct to farmers at sixty cents a ton in bulk 
in box cars. The entire Illinois Freight Associa- 
tion gave an audience to the Warden of the Peni- 
tentiary and representatives from the Agricultural 
College and a uniform freight rate has been grant- 
ed of one-half cent per ton per mile. This will en- 
able us to secure ground limestone delivered at 
Heart-of-Egpyt for $1.22^ per ton. 

"Now, to apply five tons per acre on two hun- 
278 



HARD TIMES 279 

dred and forty acres will require one thousand two 
hundred tons and that will cost us $1,570 In cash, 
less perhaps the $70, which we save on roads and 
the untreated check strips which I want to leave. 
To apply one ton of phosphate per acre to the same 
six fields will cost about $1,600. Of course, I 
shall not begin to apply phosphate until after I 
have applied the limestone and get some clover or 
manure to mix w^Ith the phosphate when I plow It 
under; and I hope with the help of the limestone 
we shall get some clover and some Increase In the 
other crops. In any case the $3,000 and Interest 
we Vv^ll get for what we can leave In the bank dur- 
ing the six or eight years It will take to get the ro- 
tation and treatment under way will pay for the 
Initial cost of the first applications of both limestone 
and phosphate; and we shall hope that by that 
time the farm will bring us something more than 
a living." 

The carload of effects shipped from WInterblne 
to Heart"of-Egypt Included two horses, a cow, a 
few breeding hogs, and some chickens ; also a sup- 
ply of corn and oats sufficient for the summer's 
feed grain. 

After the expenses of shipping were paid, less 
than $350 were deposited In the bank at the County 
Seat. Of this $250 were used for the purchase of 
another team. Hay was bought from a neighbor 
and some old hay that had been discarded by the 
balers, who had purchased, baled, and sold the 
previous hay crop from Poorland Farm, Percy 
gathered up and saved for bedding. 

He plowed forty acres of the land that had not 
been cropped for five years, and, after some serious 
delays on account of wet weather, planted the field 
In corn, using the Champion White Pearl variety, 
b^ause the Experiment Station had found it to be 



28o THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

one of the best varieties for poor land. 

"I wouldn't plant that corn if you would give 
me the seed," a neighbor had said to him. "See 
how big the cob is; and the tip is not well filled out, 
and there is too much space between the rows. I 
tell you there's too much cob in it for me. I want 
to raise corn and not corn cob." 

"It certainly is not a good show ear," said Percy, 
"but what I want most is bushels of shelled corn 
per acre. Perhaps these big kernels will help to 
give the young plant a good start, and perhaps the 
piece of cob extending from the tip will make room 
for more kernels if the soil can be built up so as 
to furnish the plant food to make them. The cob 
is large but it is covered with grains all the way 
around; and, if those kernels of corn were putty, 
we could mash them down a little and have less 
space between the rows, but it would make no more 
corn on the ear. However, my chief reason for plant- 
ing the Champion White Pearl is that this variety 
has produced more shelled corn per acre than any 
other in the University experiments on the gray 
prairie soil of 'Egypt.' " 

There were only sixteen acres of corn grown on 
the entire farm in 1903 and this yielded thirteen 
bushels per acre, as Percy learned from the share 
of the crop received by the previous landowner. 

In 1904 the Champion White Pearl yielded 
twenty bushels per acre, as nearly as could be de- 
termined by weighing the corn from a few shocks 
on a small truck scale Percy had brought from the 
north. He numbered his six forty-acre fields from 
one to six. Forty No. 7 was occupied by twelve 
acres of apple orchard, eight acres of pas- 
ture, and twenty acres of old meadow. By getting 
eighty rods of fencing it was possible to include 
twenty-eight acres in the pasture, although one 



HARD TIMES 281 

hundred and ninety-two rods of fencing had been 
required to surround the eight-acre pasture. The 
remainder of the farm was In patches, including 
about fifteen acres on one corner crossed by a lit- 
tle valley and covered with trees, a tract which 
Percy and his mother treasured above any of the 
forty-acre fields. While the week was always filled 
with work, there were many hours of real pleasure 
found In the wood's pasture on the Sunday after- 
noons. 

Forty No. i was left to He out, and No. 2 
raised only twelve acres of cowpeas. No. 3 was 
plowed during the summer and seeded to timothy 
In the early fall. No. 4 was In corn and Nos. 5 and 
6 were left In meadow, two patches of nine and 
sixteen acres previously In cowpeas and corn hav- 
ing been seeded to timothy In order, as Percy said, 
to "square out" the forty-acre fields. About fifty 
acres of land were cut over for about sixteen tons 
of hay. The corn was all put In shock, and the 
fodder as well as the grain used for feed, the refuse 
from the fodder and poor hay serving as bedding. 
About three tons of cowpea hay of excellent quality 
were secured from the twelve acres, and fifty bar- 
rels of apples were put In storage. 

Another cow and eight calves were bought, and 
during the winter some butter, two small bunches 
of the last spring's pigs, and the apple crop were 
sold. A few eggs had been sold almost every week 
since the previous March. 

In 1905, No. I was rented for corn on shares 
and produced about six hundred bushels of which 
Percy received one-third. No. 2 yielded four hun- 
dred and eighty-four bushels of oats. No. 3 pro- 
duced fourteen tons of poor hay. No. 4 was ^'rest- 
ed" and prepared for wheat, ground limestone hav- 
ing been applied. No. 5 was fall-plowed from old 



282 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

meadow and well prepared and planted to corn in 
good time; but, after the second cultivation, heavy 
rains set in and continued until the corn was seri- 
ously damaged on the flat acreas of the field, the 
more so as he had not fully understood the impor- 
tance of keeping furrows open with outlets at the 
head-lands through which the excess surface wa- 
ter could pass off quickly under such weather con- 
ditions. Patches of the field aggregating at least 
five acres were so poorly surface drained that the 
corn was "drowned out," and fifteen acres more 
were so wet as to greatly injure the crop. How- 
ever, on the better drained parts of the field where 
the corn was given further cultivation the yield was 
good and about i,ooo bushels of sound corn were 
gathered from the forty acres. 

A mixture of timothy, redtop and weeds was cut 
for hay on No. 6, the yield being better than half 
a ton per acre. 

The apples were a fair crop, and the total sales 
from that crop amounted to $750, but about half 
of this had been expended for trimming and spray- 
ing the trees, a spraying outfit, barrels, picking, 
packing, freight and cold storage. A good bunch 
of hogs were sold. 

Another year passed. Oats were grown on No. 
I and on part of No. 2, yielding eleven bushels per 
acre. 

No. 3 yielded one-third of a ton of hay per acre. 

Wheat was grown on No. 4, and clover, the first 
the land had known in many years, if ever, was 
seeded in the spring,— twenty acres of red clover 
and twenty of alsike. 

The fifty-four acres of wheat, including fourteen 
acres on No. 2, yielded seven and one-half bushels 
per acre. Soy beans were planted on No. 5, but 
wet weather seriously interferred and only part of 



HARD TIMES 283 

the field was cut for hay. Limestone was applied, 
but heavy continued rains prevented the seeding of 
wheat. 

No. 6 produced about twenty-seven bushels per 
acre of corn. 

Two lots of hogs were sold for about $800, and 
some young steers Increased the receipts by nearly 
$100. 

Mrs. Johnston continued to buy the groceries 
with eggs and butter; but it was necessary to buy 
some hay, and the labor bill was heavy. 

No. 5 joined the twenty-eight acre pasture and 
on two other sides it joined neighbors' farms where 
line fences were up, and on the other side lay No. 4. 

Percy was trying to get ready to pasture the 
clover on No. 4, and a mile of new fencing was re- 
quired. The materials were bought and the fence 
built, and when finished It also completed the fenc- 
ing required to enclose No. 5. The twenty-eight 
acre pasture was inadequate for sixteen head of 
cattle and the young stock was kept In a hired pas- 
ture. Unless he could produce more feed, Percy 
saw that the farm would soon be overstocked, for 
some colts were growing and eight cows were now 
giving milk. 

His hope was in the clover, but as the fall came 
on the red clover was found to have failed almost 
completely, and the alsike was one-half a stand. As 
the red clover had been seeded on the unllmed 
strip there was no way of knowing whether the 
limestone had even benefited the alsike. The neigh- 
bors had "seen just as good clover without putting 
on any of that stuff." 

There were no apples, but the spraying had cost 
as much as ever, and some team work had been 
hired. 

Three years of the hardest work; limestone on 



284 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

two forties, but only twenty acres of poor clover 
on one and no wheat seeded on the other. The 
neighbors "knew the clover would winter kill." The 
bills for pasturing amounted to as much as the but- 
ter had brought; for the twenty-eight-acre pasture 
had been very poor. The feed for the cows for 
winter consisted of corn fodder, straw and poor 
hay, and not enough of that. 

They had to do It— draw $150 from the Winter- 
bine reserve, besides what had been used for lime- 
stone. Part of it must go for clover seed, for 
clover must be seeded before it could be grown. The 
small barn must also be enlarged, but with the 
least possible expense. 

It was February. Wet snow, water, and almost 
bottomless mud covered the earth. With four 
horses on the wagon, Percy had worked nearly all 
day bringing in two "jags" of poor hay from the 
stack In the field. It was all the little mow would 
hold. 

He had finished the chores late and came in with 
the milk. 

"Put on some dry clothes and your new shoes," 
said his mother, "while I strain the milk and take 
up the supper. There Is a letter on the table. I 
hardly see how the mail man gets along through 
these roads. They must be worse than George 
Rogers Clark found on his trip from Kaskaskia to 
Vincennes- They say his route passed across only 
a few miles from the present cite of Heart-of- 
Egpyt. I suppose the letter Is from Mr. West." 

Percy finished washing his hands, and opened the 
letter. Two cards fell to the table as he drew 
the letter from the envelope. 

He picked up one of the cards, and read it aloud 
to his mother: 



HARD TIMES 285 

JWr. antr i^vn. ipaul <Strtmfituortf| iJarstoto 

At home after March i, 1907 

1422 College Avenue 

Raleigh, N. C. 

'^With Grandma s Compliments,'^ was penciled 
across the top of the card. Percy glanced at the 
other card and read the plain lines: 

Announce the marriage of their daughter 

Did his eyes blurr? He laid the one card over 
the other, scanned Mr. West's letter hurriedly, re- 
placed it with the cards In t\\Q envelope, and laid 
the letter at his mother's plate. 

Percy replaced his rubber boots with shoes, and 
his wet, heavy coat with a dry one. 

"You remember the letter I had from the Col- 
lege?" he asked, as he took his seat at the table. 

"Yes, I remember," she replied, "but the Insti- 
tute was to begin to-day." 

"I know," said Percy, "but Hoard and Terry 
both speak to-morrow, — Terry In the morning and 
the Governor in the afternoon, and they are the 
men the Professor especially wanted me to hear, if 
I could. I think I'll 'phone to Bronson's and ask 
Roscoe to come over and do the chores to-morrow 
noon. I can get back by nine to-morrow night." 

"But, dear, how in the world can you get to 
Olney to hear Mr. Terry speak to-morrow morn- 
ing. 

"There is a train east about eight o'clock," he 
'•eplled. "Of course the roads are too awful to 
think of driving to the station, especially since the 
mares ought not to be used much. I put four on 
the wagon to-day and tried to be as careful as pos- 



286 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

sible but It does not seem right to use them. I can 
manage alright. I will get up a little early in the 
morning and get things in shape so I can leave here 
by daylight and I am sure I can make the B. & O. 
station by eight o'clock easily. I will wear my rub- 
ber boots and carry my shoes in a bundle. I can 
change at the depot and put my boots on again 
when I get back there at seven at night. If it clears 
up, I will have the moon to help coming home." 

"But Percy, you do not mean to walk five miles 
and back through all this mud and water?" 

"I wish you would not worry. Mother. There 
is grass along the sides most of the way, and I am 
used to the mud and water. I will spy out the 
best track as I go in the morning and just follow 
my own trail coming back." 

"Then it is time we were asleep," replied the 
mother. 



-tec .,. ,. . - 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

Harder Times 



THE State Superintendent of Farmers' In- 
titutes called the meeting to order soon 
after Percy entered the Opera House 
at Olney about ten o'clock the next 
morning. 

"Divine blessing will be invoked by 
Doctor T. E. Sisson, pastor of the First Methodist 
Church of Olney:" 

"Oh, Thou, whose presence bright all 
space doth occupy and all motion guide, all 
life impart, we come this morning in the ca- 
pacity of this Farmers' Institute to thank 
thee for Thy mercies and for Thy blessings, 
and to invoke Thy presence and Thy con- 
tinued favor. As Thou with Thy presence 
hast surrounded all forms of creation and 
all stages of being with the providences of 
welfare and development and grace, so we 
pray, our Father, for guidance through the 
sessions of this institute, for the providences 
of Thy love and Thy wisdom divine as it re- 
veals itself in the open field, in the orchard, 
in the garden, bringing forth those things 
which replenish the earth with food and fill 
the mouths of our hungry ones with bread. 

"We thank Thee for this larger knowl- 
edge which has come to the minds of men, 
because they have been learning to study 
Thy works and to walk closer to Thee. Wilt 
Thou, Heavenly Father, continue to en- 
lighten this body of men and women that 
287 



288 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

are represented in this great field of the 
world's busy bee hive so that the starving 
millions of the world, now in our cities riot- 
ing for bread, and in the vast nations where 
they are crying for food, may be fed. We 
pray Thee, reveal such improvement of 
knowledge to these who are willing to get 
close to Thee to learn Thy secrets and know 
Thy wisdom, as that unto all shall be given 
plenty, for replenishing our physical needs. 
And help us to know, our Father, as we 
learn Thy will and seek to do Thy will and 
live in the higher courts of knowledge and 
wider circles of thought, so shall God reveal 
himself unto us. 

"Our Father, we thank Thee for all the 
developments and great sources of utility 
that come through the means of this insti- 
tute in the development of the resources of 
this country, this great State and adjoining 
states through the length and breadth of this 
favored nation. We pray. Heavenly Fath- 
er, while studying all these replenishments 
and seeking to defend them from the in- 
roads of evil, of the rust and the mildew and 
the worm, we pray also for the beautiful 
homes, for the souls of the children given 
to our homes, that we may study their men- 
tal and spiritual being in such a way as shall 
keep all harm and evil and wrong from this 
life of ours, and so to work in the field of 
Thy providences, revealed in hand and mind 
and heart and relationships, of school and 
church and state and farm, and all the activi- 
ties of this life's great work, as that good 
shall be our inheritance. 

"We pray Thee, Heavenly Fatther, to be 



HARDER TIMES 289 

with the officers of this institute. Give Thy 
strength, Thy presence, and Thy discern- 
ment to these who participate In the work, 
the membership and onlookers, and those 
who come to learn. We pray Thee, give us 
the revelation of Thy wisdom to replenish 
and build up every human family, and to 
Thee all praise shall be given to-day for this 
blessing and for Thy continued favor; and 
not only to-day but to-morrow and the day 
after and through all eternity the praise 
shall be Thine, In the name of Him who 
came Into this world to give us the life of 
the knowledge of God. Amen." 

''It may be," said the Chairman, "that a State 
Farmers' Institute sometimes exercises a little ar- 
bitrary power In selecting subjects we want to speak 
of. I think county Institutes might adopt the same 
plan to advantage, and assign the topic they wish 
discussed. 

"The topic assigned our speaker to-day Is 'What 
I did and how I did It.' It may sound egotistical, 
but I want to relieve the speaker of that Imputa- 
tion, because the subject was selected by the Insti- 
tute. 

"Allow me to present Mr. Terry, who needs no 
introduction to an audience of American farmers:" 

Mr. Terry began to speak: 

"Thirty-six years ago last fall," he said, "my 
wife and I bought and moved onto the farm where 
we now reside. We went on there in debt $3,700, 
on which we had to pay seven per cent. Interest. 
I had one horse, an old one, and it had the heaves, 
a one-horse harness, and a one-horse wagon, three 
tillage implement, and nine cows that were paid 
for; and a wife and two babies, but no money. 



^90 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

Now, that was the condition in which we started 
on this farm, thirty-six years ago, in debt heavily, 
and no money; but that is not the worst of it. If 
it had been as good soil as you have in some parts 
of this State, we should have been all right. How 
about the soil? For sixty years farmers had been 
running it down until it could scarcely produce any- 
thing. We had a tenant on the place one year, be- 
fore we could arrange to move on, after we got it. 
They got eight bushels of wheat per acre, and he 
said to me, 'That is a pretty good yield, don't you 
think, for this old farm?' Oh, friends, I didn't 
think so;— never ought to have bought this farm; 
— didn't know any better,— born and brought up 
in town, my father a minister, and I thought a farm 
was a farm. But I learned some things after 
awhile. That tenant mowed over probably forty 
acres of land. (We originally bought one hundred 
and twenty-five). He put the hay in the barn. It 
measured twelve tons. Half of that was weeds. 
Most of the hay he cut down in a swale. There 
wasn't anything worth considering on the upland. 
That was the condition of the land. 

"How about the buildings? The house had 
been used about sixty years, an old story-and-a-half 
house. Dilapidated, oh, my! Every time the rain 
came, we had to take every pan upstairs and set it 
to catch the water. We did not have any money 
to put on more shingles. It was out of the ques- 
tion, we couldn't do it. How about the dooryard? 
It was a cow yard. They used it for a milking 
yard, for years and years. You can imagine how 
it looked. The barn was in such condition that 
cattle were just as well off outdoors as in. The 
roof leaked terribly. The tenants had burned up 
the doors and any boards they could take off easily. 
They were too lazy to take off any that came off 



HARDER TIMES 291 

hard. They burned all the fences in reach. 

"Now friends, that was the farm we moved onto 
and the condition it was in. Some of you will 
know we saw some pretty hard times for a while. 
Time and again I was obliged to take my team, af- 
ter we got two horses (the second I borrowed of 
a relative, it was the only way I could get one), 
and go to town to do some little job hauling to get 
some money to get something to eat. That is the 
way we started farming. I remember, after three 
or four years, meeting Dr. W. I. Chamberlain. 
Some of you know him. He said: 'Terry, if you 
should get a new hat, there wouldn't anybody know 
you. Your clothes wear like the children of Israel's.' 
They had to wear. No one knew how hard up we 
were. It was not best to let them know. That 
money was borrowed of a friend in Detroit, se- 
cured on a life insurance policy. We did not let 
anybody know how hard up we really were. My 
wife rode to town (to church when she went), in 
the same wagon we hauled out manure in, for a 
time. Time and again she has been to town when 
she said she could not do without something any 
longer and came back without it. Credit was good. 
We could have bought it. We didn't dare to. 

"Now, friends, a dozen years from the time we 
started on that farm, under these circumstances, we 
were getting from one hundred and fifty to two 
hundred and fifty bushels of merchantable potatoes 
per acre right along— not a single year, but on the 
average— varying, of course, somewhat with the 
season. We were getting from four to five tons 
of clover hay in a season, from two cuttings, of 
course, per acre. We were getting from thirty- 
three to thirty-eight bushels of wheat per acre, not 
one year, but for five years we averaged thirty-five 
bushels per acre, and right on that same farm. No 



292 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

fertility had been brought on to it, practically, from 
the outside. A man without any money, in debt 
for the land $3,700, was able to do this. Now, 
how did he do it? That is the question I have 
been asked to talk upon. I have told you briefly 
something like what we have accomplished. I 
might say, further, the old house I told you that we 
lived in for fourteen years while we were building 
up the fertility of this soil, we sold for $10, after 
we got through with it. It is now a horse barn on 
the farm of our next neighbor and has been cov- 
ered over. 

^'Eleven years from the time we started we paid 
the last $500 of our debt, all dug out of that farm, 
not $25 from any other source. Thirteen years 
from the time we started, we carried off the first 
prize of $50 offered by the State Board of Agri- 
culture of Ohio, for the best detailed report of the 
best and most profitably managed small farm in 
the state,— only thirteen years from the time we 
started on that run-down land, and no fertility 
brought from the outside; without any money; and 
meanwhile we had to live. 

"Now I had arranged with the tenant the first 
year, before we went on there, to seed down a cer- 
tain field. It had been under the plow for some 
time. I wanted it seeded so I could have some 
land to mow and he seeded half of it. It was only 
a little lot, about five acres. He seeded half with 
timothy and left the other half. That was his way 
of doing things, anyway. When we moved onto 
the farm later I naturally wanted to finish that 
seeding and get that field in some sort of shape for 
mowing. I went to my next neighbor, who lives 
there yet, and asked him what I had better use. I 
didn't know^ anything, practically, about farming, 
and he advised me to try some clover seed. He 



HARDER TIMES 293 

said: *So far as I know, none was ever sown on 
that farm. They have sowed timothy everlastingly, 
everybody, because it is cheap. I knew timothy 
wouldn't grow there to amount to anything. If I 
were in your place I would try some clover.' 

"I got the land prepared and sowed that clover 
alone, so as to give it a chance. I did have sense 
enough to mow off the weeds when they got six or 
eight or ten inches high perhaps, so that the clover 
could have a little better chance to grow. It hap- 
pened to be a very wet season. I remember that 
distinctly. This was a lot near to the barn. I 
suppose what little manure they had hauled out had 
been mostly put on this land. With these favoring 
conditions the result was fairly good. Of course 
not half what we got later, but we got quite a little 
clover and when I came to mow it, and to mow that 
timothy at the other end, I could see I could draw 
the rake two or three times as far in the timothy as 
in the clover. There was more clover on an acre. 
A load of timothy would go in and a load of clover. 
When I fed it to the cows in winter I noticed when 
feeding clover for a number of days they gave 
more milk. I didn't know why. I don't know as 
anybody knew why then. There wasn't an experi- 
ment station in the land. We were following our 
own notions. But the cows gav^e more milk; I 
could see that plainly. 

"A little later I had an experiment forced on me 
by accident. I tell you just how it came about. It 
resulted in putting a good many thousands in our 
pockets and I hope millions in the pockets of the 
farmers of America. Later I wanted to plant corn 
on this field, and, as I wanted to grow just as good 
corn as I could, I got out what manure we saved 
and put it on the land preparing for plowing. I 
knew there wouldn't be more than half enough to 



294 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

go over the field. I said to myself, if there was 
any good corn, I would like it next to the road 
where people would see It. Wouldn't any of you 
do It? I didn't have a dollar to hire any help. I 
paid one dollar that year for help, and it was aw- 
ful hard to get that dollar. I began spreading that 
manure next to the road. The back half of the 
field was nearly out of sight. When T got half way 
back there wasn't any manure left and the back half 
didn't get any. Now it so happened that the timo- 
thy was on the front end of the field, and 
it got the manure. The clover on the back 
half didn't get any. It came about in the 
simple way I told you of. Naturally I didn't ex- 
pect much corn where I hadn't put any manure, but 
what was my surprise to find it was just about as 
good on that clover end of the field without any 
dressing as on the timothy end with what I had 
been able to put on. It Is only right I should say 
there wasn't much of the manure. It was poor in 
quality because we couldn't get grain for the cows 
when we couldn't get enough for ourselves to eat. 
There wasn't much manure and It was pretty poor, 
but such as It was that was the result. More hay 
to the acre, better hay, Increased fertility, some 
way, by growing this clover! 

"Now let us go back a little. I think it was the 
second spring after we moved onto the place that 
I happened to be crossing the farm of my next 
neighbor, Mr. Holcombe, now dead. I found him 
plowing. He had been around a piece of land, I 
should judge five acres, half a dozen times. He 
was sitting on the plow, tired out,— too old to work 
anyway. He said, 'I wish you would take this land 
and put in some crop on the shares; I want to 
get rid of the work; I can't do It, and would like 
to let you have it In some way. All I want Is that 



HARDER TIMES 295 

It should be left so I can seed it down In the fall 
again.' 

"It was an old piece of sod he had mowed in the 
old eastern way until It wouldn't grow anything any 
longer. I don't suppose he got a quarter of a ton 
of hay to the acre. He wanted it plowed so he 
could re-seed It. I didn't know the value of the 
land, but, foolishly perhaps, as most people 
thought, offered him five dollars an acre for the 
use of It. I hadn't enough to do at home. I didn't 
have my land in shape so I could do much. We 
were working along as fast as we could. I thought 
I could do well If I had this job, and could perhaps 
make something off It. He agreed to it. 

"I went home and got my team and plow, and 
finished the plowing. I remember making those 
furrows narrow and turning the ground well, a 
little deeper than It had been plowed before. I 
didn't realize what I was doing, then. I simply 
had been brought up to do my work well. I thought 
I was doing a good job, that was all. When I was 
through plowing I got my old harrow, a spike- 
tooth, and harrowed the ground. I had a roller. 
They were manufactured In our town. The firm 
busted and I had a chance to buy one very cheap. 
I had a roller, harrow, and plow. That was all 
the tillage Implements. The harrow had moved 
the lumps around a little. I ran the roller over the 
lumps; then harrowed, rolled, and harrowed. 
When the harrow would not take hold, I put a 
plank across and rode on It. I worked that land 
alternately until I had the surface as fine and nice 
as I could make It, two or three Inches deep. The 
harrow would not take hold any longer and I had 
to quit. By and by a rain came. I didn't know 
anything about how to till land,— this spring fal- 
low business— but I happened to hit It right. Af- 



296 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

ter it rained, I said that harrow will take hold bet- 
ter now. I loaded the harrow and got on it, and 
tore that ground up three or four inches deep. 

"The harrow teeth were sharp. I harrowed and 
rolled it and my neighbor said, 'Terry, you are 
ruining that land, it will never grow anything any 
more, it will all blow away.' I reminded him of 
his bargain; I should raise what I pleased and take 
the crop home. Every little while, I can't remem- 
ber how often, I would go over and harrow and 
roll that land. I probably plowed it the first week 
in April. For two months that was a sort of sav- 
ings bank for my work. I would run over and 
work that land, occasionally, until, about the first 
week in June, I had it prepared just as mellow and 
fine and nice as it was possible to make it. It was 
nice enough for flower seeds. 

"I builded better then than I knew. I had no 
idea what the result was going to be. When it was 
already, I sowed Hungarian grass seed. I wish 
you could have seen the crop. It grew four and a 
half or five feet high, as thick as it could stand on 
the land. I believe if I had thrown my straw hat, it 
would have staid on the top. It was enormous for 
that land. I had four big loads to the acre. You 
know what you can put on a load of Flungarian. 
When I w^ent by the owner's house with those loads 
and took them to our barn, he was out there and 
he looked awfully sour. That man, to my knowl- 
edge, had never grown half as much to the acre 
since I had known of his being on the land, prob- 
ably never more than one-third as much. Old run- 
out timothy sod; no manure, no fertilizer, nothing 
but the work, — this spring fallowing. I enjoyed 
the matter more, because he had told some of the 
neighbors he had got the start of that town fellow; 
I would never see five dollars an acre back, out of 



HARDER TIMES 297 

the land. That was his opinion of what I could 
raise. 

"Hay was hay that fall, after a dry season. We 
live in a dairy section. The cows were there and 
had to be fed. I got $18 a ton for that hay in our 
barn, something like $70 per acre. I think the 
laugh was on the other side. That was my first 
awakening, along this line of tillage. Didn't know 
how it came about, didn't know anything about the 
fertility locked up in the soil, just the plain facts. 
1 did so and so, and got such and such results. The 
next year Charlie Harlow, still living there, said, 'I 
wish you would put in some Hungarian for me this 
spring.' I said, 'What part of the crop?— I should 
want two-thirds.' He said he had an offer for half. 
I said, 'Then let him have it.' He replied, 'One- 
third of what you will raise is more than half of 
what he will raise.' He saw what I did on his 
brother-in-law's farm. 

"The following year I had a piece of land ready 
to grow corn, I had cleared out the stumps and 
done the best I could to get it in shape. I plowed 
it just as soon as the ground was dry enough, about 
the first of April, that is. I worked it every little 
while just as nearly as I could as the Hungarian 
land had been worked, I harrowed and rolled, let 
it rest a while, then harrowed and rolled. I kept 
it up until my next door neighbor, Mr. Croy, had 
planted his corn, and it was four inches high and 
growing pretty well. Ours wasn't planted. A 
neighbor came and said, 'I am sorry for you Terry, 
you don't know what you are about. You are fool- 
ing away your time. Your corn ought to have been 
in before this.' I was harrowing and rolling. I 
was determined to see whether I could do it over 
again. Some of the neighbors said it couldn't be 
done again. 



298 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"The fourth or fifth of June— too late, ordinar- 
ily, to plant corn with us — I put in the crop. I 
wish you could have seen it grow! It came up and 
grew from the word 'Go.' In four weeks it was 
ahead of any corn about. It went ahead of my 
neighbor's corn that was three or four inches high 
when ours was planted. We had a crop that, the 
farm in the condition that it was, was considered 
as something remarkable. They couldn't account 
for it, neither could I. All I knew was I had been 
working the ground so and so and getting such and 
such results. 

''Let us go back once more. The first year that 
I moved onto that farm, the first fall, we had nine 
cows, and I wanted to save all of the manure. 
Now, there wasn't an experimental station in the 
land. I didn't know anything about the potassium 
or nitrogen in the liquid manure, but I had seen 
where it dropped on the land and how the grass 
grew. I thought it was plant food, and our land 
was hungry. I said, I must try and save this man- 
ure, and not have it wasted. I hadn't a dollar. 
What did I do? There was an old stable there 
that would hold ten cows. It was in terrible shape. 
It had a plank floor that was all broken. I tore it 
out. I hauled some blue clay. I filled the stable 
four or five inches deep with the blue clay, 
wet it, pounded it down, shaped it off and 
got it level, fixed it up around the sides, saucer 
shape, so it would hold water. Then I laid down 
some old boards (I couldn't buy new ones), and 
put in a lot of straw there and put my cows in. I 
saved all that manure the first year, all that liquid. 
I had twice as much, probably more, from the same 
number of cows as had been saved on that farm 
before, and it was much more valuable. That was 
the beginning, the first winter, when I hadn't any- 



HARDER TIMES 299 

thing. 

"For the horse stable I went to town and found 
some old billboards. It was new lumber, but had 
been used for billboards. After the circus the 
owner offered to sell the boards cheap, and to trust 
me. He was a carpenter, and he jointed them. We 
put them crosswise on the old plank floor, and when 
they got wet they swelled and became practically 
water tight. I even crawled under and saw that 
there was no liquid manure dropping down there. 
I drew sawdust and used for bedding. I saved the 
liquid of the horse stable. I didn't know it was 
worth three times as much, pound for pound, as 
the solid. I didn't know It was worth two times as 
much In the cow stable, pound for pound, as the 
solid. I found it out by experience. 

"Now, when I was In town, before going on this 
farm, I worked for S. Straight & Son, the then 
great cheese and butter kings of the Western Re- 
serve. I was getting over a thousand dollars a 
year In their office. They didn't want me to leave 
at all, but wife and I took a notion to be independ- 
ent, to work for ourselves, and we bought this old 
farm. We had a chance to work for ourselves, al- 
right. The first year we worked from early in the 
morning until nine or ten o'clock at night, and then 
we tumbled into bed, too tired to think, to get up 
and do it over again. I worked In the field, taking 
out stumps and doing something, as long as I could 
see, and then helped my wife to milk. We would 
get our supper along about nine or ten o'clock. At 
the end of the year we had not one single dollar, 
after paying our interest and taxes,— not one dol- 
lar to show for our work. Do you wonder we were 
pretty discouraged? 

"I met Mr. Straight one day. He said: 'Terry, 
things are not going very well In the office since you 



300 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

left. I wish you would come back. You are not 
doing much over on that farm that I can see. You 
are having a hard time. I will gladly give you $i,- 
200 a year if you will come back into our office.' It 
was a great temptation. Think what it meant. To 
move back to town and have $100 a month. But 
I said, 'No, Mr. Straight; I can't do it.' I don't 
deserve any credit for it, friends; but I wasn't built 
that way. I can't back out. When I undertake 
anything I have got to go through. I would have 
been willing enough to leave that farm, if I had 
made a success of it, after I made a success of it, 
as I thought then; but I wasn't willing to give up, 
whipped— to acknowledge that I had undertaken 
that job and had to back out and go back to town 
to make a living. 

''Some little incident sometimes will change the 
whole character of a man's life. I remember, when 
we were in very hard conditions, we were sitting un- 
der an apple tree in our door yard one evening. It 
is there yet. Two men from town went by. One 
of them said to the other, 'What is Terry going to 
do?' The other said, 'If Terry sticks to it he will 
make something out of that old farm.' Just as 
quick as a flash, friends, I said, 'Terry will stick to 
it.' 

"You see what condition we were in. I began to 
put all these matters together. I had been taught 
how to. In college I had been trained to study and 
think, of course,— not to work with my hands. 
When I got onto the work at first I worked myself 
almost to death with my hands, and had no time to 
think or study; but gradually old methods came 
around again and I began to think and study. I 
said: 'Here, more hay to the acre, better hay, in- 
creased fertility by growing that clover, increased 
fertility by working that soil so much.' I didn't 



HARDER TIMES 301 

know why, but there was the fact. 'Now, isn't it 
possible to put these matters together and so work 
them out as to build up the fertility of this farm 
and make it blossom like the rose?' 

"I began to work it out. What was the first 
step? I sold eight or nine cows to get a little 
money to start, thus cutting off practically our whole 
source of income. There was no other way I could 
get any money. We had to do some draining. A 
part of the land we could not do anything with un- 
til it was tile-drained. It took money to buy tile. I 
had to have a little help about the digging, al- 
though I like to boast that I laid every tile on my 
farm with my own hands. I buried every one and 
know it will stay there. They were all sound and 
hard and good. In all these years not one has ever 
failed, not one drain or tile. I worked day after 
day, in the rain, wet to the skin, because it had to 
be done. It was the foundation of our success. 

"As I was coming here yesterday, and passed so 
much of your flat land, in need of drainage, I 
thought, drainage is the foundation of success for 
lots of these people, down here in southern Illinois. 
You can't do much until you have the water out of 
the land. Then you have a chance to do some- 
thing with tillage and manure-saving and clover. 
But you throw away your efforts when you try to 
do this work on land that is in need of drainage. 

"As fast as possible we fixed up this land. Of 
course, it took years. We hadn't money, and there 
were many things that had to be done, — changing 
fields, getting out stumps, doing drainage,— it all 
took time. I had my plans made and was working 
as fast as I could. 

"Two things I did, to keep life in our bodies un- 
til we got ready to make some money. One was 
to cut off every bit of timber on the farm. Our 



302 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

neighbors laughed at us and prophesied rain and 
all that. There were two things In my mind. We 
had to have money to live on, and I managed to 
get quite a little of It In that way. In the next place 
we didn't have much of a farm, and I wanted the 
land for tillage. We can buy wood of the neigh- 
bors to-day, cheaper that we sold ours, so we never 
lost anything. 

''Another way we got some money, as we went 
along, that helped us, was raising forage crops. I 
did not attempt to put In crops that required much 
hand labor. I raised Hungarian, and everything I 
could to be fed to cows. In our dairying section, 
with feed often scarce in the fall, farmers often 
had more stock than they could winter. We could 
pick up cows cheaply on credit and hold them. I 
could winter them for people, and the manure we 
used as a top dressing, to make the clover grow. 
Starting with a little piece of land, we spread out 
more and more, and got more and more enriched, 
and more and more growing clover, and by and by 
we got all the cultivated land growing It. Then 
we were ready for business. 

"I am afraid to tell you Illinois farmers, with 
your great big farms, how large our farm was. 
We bought one hundred and twenty-five acres. We 
sold off all but fifty-five. That didn't help us, for 
the man who bought It was so poor he didn't pay us 
for over thirty years. Then the land went up In 
price and he was able to sell it for a good price and 
we got our money. Fifty-five acres were selected, 
the best we could for our purpose. Twenty acres 
was so situated as to have no value. Thirty-five 
acres was fairly good, tillable land, the best we 
could pick out. I began a system of rotation, after 
we got the land ready for It, of clover, potatoes, 
and wheat. My idea was to have the clover gather 



HARDER TIMES 303 

fertility to grow potatoes and wheat. I was going 
to make use of the tillage to help out all I could, 
and sold the potatoes and wheat, and then had 
clover again, and so on around the circle. Every- 
body said, of course I would fail. I didn't know 
but I would. It was the only chance and I had to 
take it. 

"Of course it took quite a while to get this thing 
going. The first three or four years didn't amount 
to much. After six or eight years we were sur- 
prised at the result. We were getting more than 
we hoped for. In a dozen years the whole coun- 
try was surprised. I remember when a reporter 
was sent from Albany, New York, to see what we 
were doing, and reported in the Country Gentle- 
men. We had visitors by the score from various 
states, it made such a stir. They couldn't believe 
it was possible for a man to take land as poor as 
that, and make it produce so well. We had some 
they could see that had not been touched. As I 
told you, in eleven years we were out of debt. Af- 
ter about ten or eleven years we were laying up a 
thousand dollars a year, above all living and run- 
ning expenses, from this land, raising potatoes and 
wheat. It doesn't seem possible to you large farm- 
ers, but you can't get around the facts. In 1883 
we laid up $1,700 from the land. But this was a 
little extra. 

"We wanted to build a new house. We had 
lived in the old shell long enough. We had the 
money to pay cash down for the new house and to 
pay for the furniture that went into it. We paid 
$3,500 cash down, that fall, for the house and fur- 
niture, and every dollar taken out of the land. 
Only two or three years before that we paid the 
last of our debt. I had not done any talking or 
writing to speak of, at that time. I did not be- 



304 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

gin until 1882. I never went to an institute, and 
never wrote an article for a paper, except when 
called upon to do it. I never sought such a job and 
prefer to stay at home on my farm. It was only 
because I was called to do this work that I got into 
it. For twenty-one years I was never at home one 
week during the winter season. Farmers called for 
me and I didn't feel that I could refuse to go. 

"Now, how did we do it? I told some of the 
things. Let us go down to the science of the mat- 
ter a little, now. I didn't know anything about the 
science at the time. That came later. Practice 
came first. We know now — of course, you all 
know— that clover has the ability, through the lit- 
tle nodules that grow on the roots, to take the free 
nitrogen out of the air to grow itself. You know 
about four-fifths of the air you are breathing is ni- 
trogen in the form of gas, and clover has the ability 
to feed on that and make use of it. The other plants 
have not. I might illustrate it in this way: You 
can't eat grass; at least, you wouldn't do very well 
on it. But the steer eats grass and you eat the 
steer, so you get the grass, don't you? Your corn, 
wheat, oats, timothy, potatoes, so far as we know, 
can't touch free nitrogen in the air, but clover can 
and then feed it to those other crops. 

"Let us look into how we got the phosphorus. 
On land that would not grow over six to eight 
bushels of wheat per acre we have succeeded once 
in growing forty-seven and three-fourths bushels to 
the acre, on all the land sowed, of wheat that sold 
away above the market price and weighed sixty- 
four pounds to the measured bushel, and never put 
on a pound of phosphorus. We got it from that 
tillage we told you about. Our land in northeast- 
ern Ohio is not very good naturally. It is nothing 
like what you have in this state. Most of you 



HARDER TIMES 305 

know that is the poorest land we have In the state 
in general, but we have a fair share of clay and 
sand in ours. That has helped us wonderfully. We 
have clay enough so that with our tillage we can 
make so far all the plant food available we want. 

"Now, a little more about the tillage. I told 
you how we worked the surface of that ground and 
made it fine and nice. After five or six years, per- 
haps, of this kind of work, I got to thinking if I 
had some tool that would stir that ground to the 
bottom of the plowed furrow and mix it very deep- 
ly and thoroughly, I might get still better results 
out of the tillage. I happened to be in town one 
morning in the fall, when we had some wheat land 
(clover sod) plowed and prepared for wheat. I 
had harrowed and rolled it and made it as nice as 
I could. — It was what the neighbors would call all 
ready for sowing and more than ready. In town 
I saw a man trying to sell a two-horse cultivator. I 
think it was made In this State. It was the first one 
I ever saw— you can judge how long ago. It was a 
big, heavy, cumbersome thing, — a horse-killer. I 
thought, if I only had that, I knew I could Increase 
the fertility of our soil still more. I hadn't any 
money. We hadn't got far enough that there was 
a dollar to spare. What did I do? I gave my 
note for $50 and took that cultivator home with 
me. I could have bought it for $35 in money, but 
I didn't have it. My wife didn't say a word when 
I got home. I have heard since that she did a lot 
of crying to think I would go In debt $50 more, 
and all for that thing. 

"I got home about eleven o'clock and you can well 
suspect that I couldn't eat any dinner that day. I 
hitched up and went right to work, and told my 
wife I couldn't stop for any dinner. I rode that cul- 
tivator that day and tore up that field in a way 



3o(5 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

land was never torn up in our section before. There 
was nothing to do it with. The soil would roll up 
and tumble over. After going lengthwise I went 
crosswise. A thousand hogs couldn't have made 
it rougher. The neighbors looked on and said that 
Terry would do 'most anything if you would only 
let him ride.' The worst of it was, I really didn't 
know but what they were right, and all he would 
get out of it was the riding. It was a serious thing. 
I had to wait until the harvest time before I could 
know. 

"What was the result? I got ten bushels of 
wheat more per acre than had ever grown on the 
land before, without any manure or fertilizer hav- 
ing been applied since it grew the previous crop in 
the rotation. Clover had been grown. It was a 
clover sod. I didn't know how much came from 
the clover and how much from the tillage. I didn't 
care, they went together to get that result. I ask- 
ed some of the old settlers how much had been 
grown there per acre during their recollection. 
They said twenty-three bushels was the most they 
had known. I got thirty-three. The neighbors 
said, 'It happened so, you can't do it again.' You 
know how they talk, to make out nothing can be 
done with an old farm. I was interested in doing 
it again. I paid that note and had a large margin 
of profit left, you see, out of the extra wheat. It 
all came right. 

"The next year I took the next field in rotation 
and worked it in the same way, probably more. I 
got thirteen bushels more wheat per acre than ever 
grew before. Thirty-six bushels of wheat! Such a 
thing was never heard of in our section before; 
land that would not grow anything a dozen years 
ago. Do you wonder I have been an enthusiast 
on tillage since then? Why, they call me a crank 



HARDER TIMES 307 

sometimes. It Is a good crank, as it has turned out 
prosperity for us. 

"After a time I began to think, can't we carry 
this matter a little further? People generally don't 
cultivate their crops more than two or three times 
in a season. Can I cultivate more to advantage? I 
began to try it, six or eight times, eight or ten. I 
think there have been dry years when I have culti- 
vated our potatoes as many as fifteen times. I 
don't believe we ever went through them when it 
didn't pay. I remember one fall, when it was a 
wet season. When the tops began to die and got 
to the point where I could see the space between the 
rows, I started the cultivators again. I had money 
then to hire men and I hired plenty of them. I start- 
ed to cultivate between the rows. People said, 'What 
is the idiot doing now?' I said, 'He is going to 
raise five bushels more by doing that work, that is 
what he is after.' 

"Now, remember, more hay to the acre, better 
hay, increased fertility by growing clover. Increased 
fertility by working this land over and over in the 
different ways I have told you of. They used to 
send for me to talk on this subject, before I knew 
anything about It, except that I had done It. In 
Wisconsin, some twenty years ago, I helped at the 
first Intitute held in the state. They sent for me 
to come up. I told them what I was doing and how 
I thought it came about, what I thought clover was 
doing for me. When I was through I asked Pro- 
fessor Henry, who was In the audience, to tell me, 
honestly, what he thought about my talk. He said, 
'As a farmer I believe you are right, but as a 
scientific man I dare not say so in public. ' 
A "Professor Roberts came to my place one time, 
j|to Investigate a little. I knew what he came for, I 
showed him around, and showed him the land we 



3o8 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

had not touched, not to this day. He was a sur- 
prised man. I remember the second crop of clover 
was at its best. It was above his knees. He says, 
'This will make two tons of hay to the acre, and It 
is the second crop.' He didn't say but very little. 
I couldn't get him to talk much. He went home 
and began that system of experiments at Ithaca that 
has practically revolutionized the agriculture of the 
east— experiments In tillage. Pretty soon we had 
his book on the fertility of the soil. I think he got 
his inspiration from what he saw. He said to him- 
self, seems to me, 'Terry has something that scien- 
tific men do not know.' He got samples of soil all 
over the state. They analyzed the soil and found 
what the average soil of New York contained. They 
found about four thousand five hundred pounds of 
nitrogen, six thousand three hundred pounds ot 
phosphoric acid, and twenty-four thousand pounds 
of potash In an average acre eight inches deep; and 
they had been buying potash largely. (Lauo^hter). 

"The farm we moved onto was the old Sanford 
homestead. Old Mr. Sanford lived there and 
brought up a large family, I think five of them 
boys. Every one of these boys left the farm just 
as soon as they could get away. There wasn't any- 
thing In farming for them. After we had been at 
work a dozen years or more and got thinfis going 
nicely, they came back (one of them lives In Con- 
necticut) and visited the old homestead. I remem- 
ber Lorenzo said. 'It seems like a miracle. I don't 
know how you did it. We worked from daylight 
to dark, from one year's end to another, and never 
had anything. We boys used to be promised a 
holiday on the Fourth of July if the corn was all 
hoed. That was all we got. How on earth have 
you done these things?' 

"Friends, there were three farms we bought. 



HARDER TIMES 309 

Old Mr. Sanford didn't know anything about but 
one. There was the air and the soil and there 
was the subsoil. He had been working only the 
soil, plowing it three or four Inches deep, scratch- 
it over, taking what came, and every year less and 
less came. The land had run down until the sur- 
face had quit producing. We took the same soil, 
put in clover and took the fertility out of the up- 
per farm, the air, and out of the lower one, the sub- 
soil, and put It into the second one. We plowed 
the surface soil a little deeper and deeper until we 
got it eight or nine inches deep instead of four. We 
worked it more and more, setting more and more 
of the available plant food in the soil free. That 
is how we did It. 

"I say 'we' advisedly, because, friends. If I hadn't 
had a wife fully able and wilbng to do her part, 
and more, I would not have this story to tell." 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

An Awakening Dream 

**r I — ^HE chores are all done," said Mrs. 

■ Johnston, as Percy began to take 

■ down his heavy work-coat about nine 
m o'clock that evening. 

"You ought not to have done 
them," he chided as he slipped his 
arm around her and drew her to the sofa. 

"Tell me about the Institute," she said, stroking 
the hair from his forehead. 

He told her of the professors who were there 
from the University and briefly reported the ad- 
dresses he had heard. 

"And I verily believe," he added, "that if Terry 
were to wake up some morning and find himself 
located on the "Barrens" of the Highland Rim of 
Tennessee, he would start out with the firm convic- 
tion that all he would need to do to become a suc« 
cessful farmer there would be to sow clover and 
then 'work the land for all that's in it.' But, after 
all, it is not so strange, perhaps, that one who has 
himself discovered and then utilized the power of 
clover and tillage to restore and increase the pro- 
ductive power of land rich in limestone, phos- 
phorus and all other essential mineral plant food, 
should jump to the fixed and final conclusion that 
the same system of treatment is all that is needed 
to make any and all land productive. The fact 
that Terry's land (if equal to the nearby New York 
land) contained two thousand three hundred 
pounds of phosphorus in the plowed soil of an 
acre when he began to work it out, while the soil 
of the Tennessee "Barrens" contains only about 



AN AWAKENING DREAM 311 

one hundred pounds, does not disturb him or mod- 
ify his opinion so long as his personal experience is 
limited to his own land. 

"Terry's problem was easier than Mr. West's 
on his Virginia farm, where the soil is acid and 
hence limestone must be used liberally in order 
that clover and other legumes may be grown suc- 
cessfully. Even the supply of phosphorus and 
other mineral elements is probably greater in Ter- 
ry's farm in northeastern Ohio than in the soil of 
Westover. 

"Our problem is even more difficult, because we 
must not only increase the supply of active organic 
matter, although we have a reserve of old humus 
far above that contained in the Terry or West 
farms; but in addition we need more limestone than 
Mr. West and then we must add the phosphorus. 
Of course the surface washing is a serious factor 
on Westover, but perhaps our tight clay subsoil Is 
worse. 

"But I learned at least two things that I shall 
try to profit by. One of these was from Gov- 
ernor Hoard's lecture on 'Cows Versus Cows, and 
the man behind the cow;' and the other is that we 
must do more work on the land." 

"Oh, Percy, I am so sorry you went. How can 
you possibly do more work than you have been do- 
ing?" 

"I may need to hire more," he replied; "and, of 
course, that will further increase our expenses, but, 
it will surely pay to do well what we try to do." 

"When does my boy expect to get married?" she 
asked, softly, as she gently stroked his hair. 

"I am married," he replied. 

She looked at him in wonder. 

"Mother, mine, I thought that you knew I was 
married." 



312 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

"Your face Is blank sincerity, as usual," she said 
smiling, "but you never deceive me with your voice. 
Your voice reveals every attempt at deception. Tell 
me what you mean." 

His voice was sincere now. "I am married to a 
farm and laboring together with God. After hear- 
ing Terry's talk, I am more than ever determined 
to continue to do my part, working in the light as 
He gives me the pov/er to see the light." 

"Percy, dear," she asked, "did you know the 
bride whose wedding cards you received yester- 
day?" 

"Don't you remember what I told you of Ade- 
laide West, Mr. West's daughter?" he queried. 

"I thought so," said the mother. She stepped 
to Percy's home-made desk, and from one of the 
pigeon holes, drew out a bunch of letters, and se- 
lected the top and bottom letters from the pile. 

"Here are the first and last letters you have re- 
ceived from Mr. West. Did you ever see this?" 
She drew out a crumpled piece of paper and placed 
it in his hand. 

"Her Grandma has not consented'^ he read. 
"What does that mean?" 

"I do not know and I did not know when I read 
it three years ago. It came in your first letter from 
Mr. West. I thought you had not found it in the 
envelope, but you gave me the letter to read and I 
found it. I left it in the letter, but never till to-day 
did I feel that I ought to mention it to you. Yes- 
terday you received a letter with two cards; but you 
read only one of them to me." 

"But I saw the other was only the wedding an- 
nouncement, and I left them both in the letter for 
you to read." 

"And I read them both," she said. "Read this." 

Percy took the card and slowly read : 



AN AWAKENING DREAM 313 

JHr, antr JHrs, (tlavtntt Toit 

Announce the marriage of their daughter 

^mclta ILotttfiie 

to 

llroftssor JSauI Stronfitaorti) iJarstoto 

She watched his face but saw no sign. She kiss- 
ed his forehead and then pointed to the writing, 
"With Grandma's Compliments," saying, "I do not 
know what this means, but I thought my boy might 
be getting too careless, when he fails to read even the 
wedding announcement of college professors, sent 
to him by such a good friend as Grandma West 
may intend to be." 

Percy looked into his mother's face as if to read 
her thoughts. 

"I think I understand what you have in mind," 
he said. "Mr. West has mentioned once or twice 
that Adelaide was teaching school, but I supposed 
that she was trying to earn enough to buy 
her own wedding outfit." 

"Perhaps that is true," replied the mother, "and 
perhaps she is already married or soon to be mar- 
ried; but I thought you ought to know that she 
had not married Professor Barstow, lest you might 
allude to it in your letters to Mr. West." 



CHAPTER XXXIX 
Honey Without Wax 

u"W "W" 'T'ELL, I reckon the cowboy's gone 

^ A / back to 'tend to his cows," remark- 
%/%/ ^^ the grandmother to Adelaide, 

Y T ^^ s^^ returned from taking Percy 

to Blue Mound and found the old 
lady sitting on the lawn bench ap- 
parently enjoying the mild late November weather. 
"Did you leave him at the station or see him off?" 

"Neither," Adelaide replied, sitting down beside 
her. "The train was late, and he insisted on com- 
ing back with me to the first turn, and then stood 
and watched till I came within sight of home at the 
next turn. I doubt if he is back to the station yet." 

"He reminds me, Pet, of the Latin definition you 
gave for sincere/' remarked the grandmother. 
"Pure honey without wax, wasn't it?" 

"Oh no. Grandma. Not pure honey. It says 
nothing about honey. Sine is the Latin for with- 
out, and cera means wax; so that our word sincere, 
taken literally from the Latin, means without wax/' 

"Oh yes, I see now; but let me tell you, Ade- 
laide, I think that professor of yours is right smart 
wax." 

"Why, Grandma! I never heard you say such 
a thing. You know papa and mamma like Pro- 
fessor Barstow, and I think I like him too, and,— 
and he has papa's consent, and mamma's consent." 

"Well, you never heard me say such a thing be- 
fore and you won't ever hear it again, but he hasn't 
got my consent. I think he's some wax, but I reckon 
you think he's some honey, and I know he thinks 
he's some punk'ns. Of course, your father would 

3H 



HONEY WITHOUT WAX 315 

like an English or Scottish nobleman for a son-in- 
law, or at least a college professor with a string of 
ancestry reaching across the water; but the Henry's 
prefer to make their own reputations as they go 
along, and I doubt if Patrick ever saw England or 
Scotland. I tell you, Adelaide, a pound of gump- 
tion will make a better husband than a shipload of 
ancestry, and I just hope you will more than like 
your husband, that's all." 

With that the old lady arose and walked to the 
house. 



CHAPTER XL 

Inspiration 



Mr. Percy Johnston, 

Heart-of-Egypt, 111. 



Westover, 
March 14, 1907, 



MY Dear Friend:— We were delight- 
ed to receive your interesting letter 
of March 2, describing the Farm- 
er's Institute. I have been to two 
such meetings in Virginia, but they 
are devoted to fruit and truck and 
dairying, and no one seems to know much about 
our soils. I appreciate more and more every year 
the absolute knowledge you helped me to secure 
concerning Westover, where we had been working 
in the dark for two centuries. I am sure you will 
succeed on Poorland Farm,— just as confident as any 
one can be in advance of actual achievement; and I 
expect to see the time when Richland Farm will be 
a more appropriate name. 

I only wish you could see my alfalfa. I have been 
seeding more every year and now have sixty acres. 
It has come through winter in fine condition and it 
will be a fine sight by Easter. Here's a standing 
invitation to take Easter dinner with us, or any 
other dinner, for that matter, If you ever come 
East. 

I am planning to sow about forty acres more al- 
falfa this year. A writer for the Breeder's Ga- 
zette visited us last summer, and he said some of 
our alfalfa was as good as any he had ever seen In 
California. He said ground limestone was plainly 

316 



INSPIRATION 317 

what we need for alfalfa at Westover, but he 
thought some phosphorus would also help on the 
less rolling areas, where the alfalfa is not so good 
as where you found more phosphorus. 

I can get ground limestone for $2.90 a ton now, 
delivered at Blue Mound in bulk in carload lots. V/e 
are hoping to get it still lower, and I think we will, 
for some of the big lime manufacturers, such as the 
company at Riverton, are making plans to furnish 
ground limestone; and the railroad companies are 
likely to make better rates, or the State will do so 
for them. 

It is truly a lamentable situation, when our hills 
and mountains are full of all sorts of limestone, 
and our exhausted lands are crying for that more 
than anything else. We understand, even better 
than you, that everybody is poor in a country where 
the land is poor; and it should be to the greatest 
interest of the railroad companies as well as to all 
other industries, to unite in an effort to make it 
possible for every landowner to apply large 
amounts of limestone to his land,— the more the 
better, — and no one should exoect any large profit 
from the business ; but wait till the benefit is pro- 
duced on the land,— wait till the farmer has his in- 
creased crops, and some money from the sale of 
those crops. Then the railroads can make profit 
hauling those crops to market and hauling back the 
necessary supplies, and even the luxuries, which the 
farmer's money will enable him to buy and pay for. 
Then the factory wheels will turn; for, as you told 
us, the Secretary of Agriculture reports that eighty- 
six per cent, of all the manufactured products are 
made from agricultural raw materials. 

There is no danger but what the railroads and 
manufacturers and commercial people will get their 
share out of the produce from the farms; but it is 



3i8 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

absolutely sure that, when the farms fail to pro- 
duce, then there is no profit for any of them, and 
the last man to starve out will be the farmer him- 
self, for he can live on what he raises even though 
he has nothing left to sell. 

We are all well. My son Charles is still book- 
keeping for a Richmond firm, but he is becoming 
greatly interested in my alfalfa, and says he some- 
times wishes he had taken an agricultural course in- 
stead of the literary at college. His grandmother 
says she reckons the agricultural college could give 
him about all the literature he needs keeping books 
for a hides and tallow wholesale company; and I 
am coming to believe that she is about right. I 
still remember that the dative of indirect object is 
used with most Latin verbs compounded with ad, 
ante, con, in, inter, oh, post, pre, pro, sub, and super, 
and sometimes circum; but it would have been just 
as easy for me to have learned forty years ago that 
the essential elements of plant food are carbon, 
oxygen, and hydrogen; nitrogen, phosphorus, and 
potassium; magnesium, calcium, iron, and sulfur; 
and possibly chlorin; and I am sure that the cul- 
ture of Greek roots and a knowledge of Latin 
compounds have been of less value to me during 
the forty years than the culture of alfalfa roots and 
even a meager knowledge of plant-food compounds 
have been during the last three years. 

Adelaide is teaching; Frank is in the academy; 
and the younger children are all In school. 

We shall always be glad to hear from you. 
Very respectfully yours, 

Charles West. 

"That Is an exceptionally good letter," said Mrs. 
Johnston, as Percy finished reading. 

"Not for Mr. West," he replied. "His letters 



INSPIRATION 319 

are always good, always helpful and encouraging, 
almost an inspiration to me. Mr. West Is in many 
ways a very exceptional man. If he had not been 
tied down all his life to a so-called worn-out farm 
of a thousand acres, he might just as well have 
been the Governor of the State. Even In spite of 
himself he has been practically forced to accept 
some very responsible public offices, but the finan- 
cial sacrifice was too great to permit his retaining 
them very long. I never realized until I was near- 
ly through college that the trustees of our own 
University devote a large amount of time to that 
public service with no financial remuneration what- 
ever. They are merely reimbursed for their actual 
and necessary travelling expenses." 

"Well, if I were a young man about your age, 
this letter would be an inspiration to me," said his 
mother. 

"You mean his suggestion about changing the 
name of our farm?" 

"No, I mean his possible suggestion about chang- 
ing the name of his daughter." 

Percy was silent. 

"How can I tell anything from your blank face? 
Why do you not speak?" 

"You will have to show me," said Percy. 

"Will you accept his invitation?" 

"Oh, Mr. West always closes his letters with an 
invitation for me to visit them if I ever come East. 
There Is nothing exceptional or unusual In that." 

"The letter Is very exceptional," she repeated, 
"Insomuch that if there Is no understanding there 
is no misunderstanding, and if there is some mis- 
understanding there was no Intention. When Mrs. 
Barton says: 'Do come over when you can,' there 
is no Invitation intended and no acceptance expect- 
ed; but when Mrs. McKnIght says: 'Can't you 



320 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

and your son come over and take supper with us 
Thursday evening,'— well that is an invitation to 
come. In the case of Mr. West's letter, perhaps 
you had an invitation to spend the Easter vacation 
at Westover when his daughter will be at home,— 
and perhaps not." 

Percy was silent and his mother quietly waited. 

*'In any case," he said, *'I cannot afford to go 
this spring. We never were so short of funds. I 
almost begrudged the railroad fare I paid to go to 
the Institute." 

"I have agreed to agree with you regarding the 
matter of hiring more help on the farm if you need 
it," she said; "for it is easily possible to lose by 
saving. There are some things which should never 
be influenced by financial considerations. It is more 
than three years since your Eastern trip. You 
need a rest and a change. It would be entirely 
commonplace for you to spend the Easter time in 
Virginia. You ought to see the country in the 
spring; and you ought especially to be interested in 
Mr. West's sixty acres of alfalfa. Expectations 
are always followed either by realization or by dis- 
appointment, either of which my noble son can 
bear." 

Her fingers passed through his hair as she kissed 
his forehead. 

"The only question is, whether you would enjoy 
a visit to Westover," she continued. "You have 
insisted that the Winterbine deposit remain in my 
name, but I have written and signed a check against 
that reserve for $ioo, and you have only to fill in 
the date and draw the amount at the County Seat 
whenever you wish. If you go, express my regards 
to the ladies, and especially remember me to the 
grandmother." 



CHAPTER XLI 

The Kindergarten 

Heart-of-Egypt, 
November 9, 1909. 
Hon. James J. Hill, 

Great Northern Railroad Company, 
St. Paul, Minnesota. 

MY Dear Sir:— I have read with very 
great interest your article in the No- 
vember World's Work on ''What 
We Must Do to be Fed." I won- 
der if you read The American 
Farm Review! In the editorial 
columns of that journal, issue of October 28, 1909, 
occurs the following: 

"The pessimist always assumes that every man 
who quits farming for some other business does so 
because there is something the matter with the 
farm. Mr. James J. Hill has recently considered 
the question and decided that, unless the farmer 
and his family can be confined on the land and be 
compelled to do better work than they have been 
doing, the balance of the population must starve 
to death. The bug-a-boo of impending decadence 
raised by such talk is based upon a wrong assump- 
tion, inadequate statistics, and a failure to com- 
prehend the evolutional movement in agriculture." 
The evolutional movement means, of course, that 
we are different from other people. Have not 
England, Germany and France run their lands 
down until they produce only fourteen bushels of 
wheat per acre and have we not steadily built ours 
up to an average yield of thirty bushels? Other 

321 



322 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

peoples wear out their soil because they fall to have 
part in the evolutional movement; whereas, did we 
not come to America and at once begin to make 
our rich land richer than it ever was in the virgin 
state ? Do you not know, Sir, that the oldest lands 
in America are now the richest, most productive, 
and most valuable? We admit, of course, that the 
Bureau of Soils of the United States Department 
of Agriculture reports the common level upland 
loam soil of St. Mary county, Maryland, to be 
valued at $i to $3 an acre, and the same kind of 
land in Prince George county, adjoining the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, to be worth $1.50 to $5; but do 
you not know the American evolutional movement 
could easily move all those decimal points two 
places and at once make those values read from 
$100 to $500 an acre. And likewise, it would be 
a very simple matter to change the yield of corn in 
Georgia from eleven bushels per acre and have It 
read one hundred and ten bushels. Why not, if an 
acre of corn in the adjoining State of South Caro- 
lina has produced two hundred and thirty-nine 
bushels in one season? Do you not see that this 
simple evolution would also put plate glass In the 
thousands of windowless homes now inhabited by 
human beings, both white and colored. In the State 
of Georgia? 

There is another phase of this evolutional move- 
ment which should not be overlooked. There is al- 
ready fast developing in this country a class of 
people who can live and grow fat on hot air, and 
they will tell you that your only trouble is poor 
digestion, and they are glad that they can see the 
bright side of things and enjoy life in this glorious 
country, assured that the future will take care of 
Itself. Have not all other great agricultural coun- 
tries rapidly gotten into this evolutional movement 



THE KINDERGARTEN 323 

until all their people live on Easy Street? 

I have a letter from a missionary in China, a 
former schoolmate, Clarence Robertson, who re- 
signed the position of Assistant Professor of me- 
chanical engineering in Purdue University in order 
to accept in the largest sense the Master's specific 
invitation to "Go ye, therefore, and teach all na- 
tions." 

This letter was written in February, 1907, and 
contained the following statement regarding the 
famine district in which the writer was located: 

'^At the present time the only practical thing to 
do is to let four hundred thousand people starve, 
and try to get seed grain for the remainder to plant 
their spring crops." 

I think we have failed utterly, Mr. Hill, to lay 
special emphasis upon either the evolutional or the 
emotional in agriculture. Is it not probable that a 
superabundance of emotion would even permit the 
constitution to wave the bread requirement in the 
bread-and-water-with-love diet? As a cure for 
pessimism the emotional tonic is strongly recom- 
mended. 

On the other hand, there are some people who 
are even too emotional, people who are inclined to 
sit up and take notice when the mathematics and 
statistics are spread out in a clear light and plainly 
reveal the fact that the time is near at hand when 
their children may lack for bread. (They already 
lack for meat and milk and eggs in many places). 
To allay any feeling of this sort that might tend to 
excite those who are so emotional as even to love 
their own grandchildren, some sort of soothing 
syrup should be administered. A preparation put 
out by the Chief of the United States Bureau of 
Soils and fully endorsed by the great optimist, the 
Secretary of Agriculture, is recommended as an 



324 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

article very much superior to Mrs. WInslow's. As 
a moderate dose for an adult, read the following 
extracts from pages 66^ 78, and 80 of Bureau of 
Soils Bulletin 55 (1909), by the Chief of the 
Bureau : 

"The soil Is the one Indestructible, immutable as- 
set that the nation possesses. It is the one resource 
that cannot be exhausted; that cannot be used up." 

"From the modern conception of the nature and 
purpose of the soil It is evident that it cannot wear 
out, that so far as the mineral food Is concerned It 
will continue automatically to supply adequate quan- 
tities of the mineral plant foods for crops." 

"As we see It now, the main cause of infertile 
soils or the deterioration of soils Is the Improper 
sanitary conditions originally present in the soil or 
arising from our Injudicious culture and rotation 
of crops. It is, of course, exceedingly difficult to 
work out the principles which govern the proper 
rotation for any particular soil." 

"As a national asset the soil Is safe as a means 
of feeding mankind for untold ages to come. So 
far as our investigations show, the soil will not be 
exhausted of any one or all of its mineral plant 
food constituents. If the coal and iron give out, 
as It is predicted they will before long, the soil can 
be depended on to furnish food, light, heat, and habi- 
tation not only for the present population but for 
an enormously larger population than the word 
has at present." 

"Personally, I take a most hopeful view of the 
situation as respects the soil resources of our coun- 
try and of the world at large. I cannot bring my- 
self to believe that the discouraging reports that 
have been Issued from time to time as to the 
threatened deterioration of our soils, as to the ex- 
haustion of any particular element of fertility, will 



THE KINDERGARTEN 325 

ever be realized." 

Sweeten to taste, and repeat the dose if neces- 
sary. 

If you desire mathematical proof that we can al- 
ways continue to take definite and measurable 
amounts of plant food away from the limited sup- 
plies still remaining in our American soils and still 
have enough left to supply the needs of all future 
crops, let it be understood: 

That y = X 
Then xy — x" 
. And xy—y^ = x'—y' 
Or y (x—y) = (x+y) (x—y) 
Hence, y — x+y 
Thus, y = 2y 
Therefore, 1 = 2 

Now cube both sides of the last equasion and: 

1 = 8 

Multiply by one hundred and sixty, the number 
of pounds of phosphorus still remaining in the 
common upland soil of Southern Maryland, and 
behold: 

160 = 1280 

Thus the soil again becomes the equal of the 
$200 corn belt land,— Q. E. D. 

Fortunately, Mr. Hill, you have not found it 
"exceedingly difficult to work out the principles 
which govern the proper rotation" that "actually 
enriches the land." 

Seriously, I hope you will permit me to take this 
opportunity to say that I deplore, as must all right- 



326 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

minded and clear-thinking men, the occasional petty 
criticisms which attribute to you some selfish motive 
for the honest and noble stand you have taken con- 
cerning the importance of immediate action and of 
a wide-spread, far-reaching, and generally effective 
movement looking toward, not the conservation, 
but the restoration, and permanent preservation of 
American soils. According to the Scriptures, there 
is a sin which God, Himself, will not forgive; 
namely, the sin of imputing bad motives to the one 
who does right from motives only good and pure. 

Thoughts that deserve a place of honor in Amer- 
ican history you have expressed in the following 
words : 

*'The farm is the basis of all industry, but for 
many years this country has made the mistake of 
unduly assisting manufacture, commerce, and other 
activities that center in cities, at the expense of the 
farm. The result is a neglected system of agri- 
culture and the decline of the farming interest. But 
all these other activities are founded upon the ag- 
ricultural growth of the nation and must continue 
to depend upon it. Every manufacturer, every 
merchant, every business man, and every good citi- 
zen is deeply interested in maintaining the growth 
and development of our agricultural resources. 
Herein lies the true secret of our anxious interest 
in agricultural methods; because, in the long run, 
they mean life or death to future millions; who are 
no strangers or invaders, but our own children's 
children, and who will pass judgment upon us ac- 
cording to what we have made of the world in which 
their lot is to be cast." 

True and noble thoughts are these, from the mas- 
ter mind of a great statesman; for there are states- 
men who neither grace nor disgrace the Halls of 
Congress. 



THE KINDERGARTEN 327 

Your article contains twenty-eight pages of whole- 
some reading matter and instructive illustrations, 
and, in addition, about one page, I regret to say, of 
misinformation that will do much to destroy your 
otherwise valuable contribution to agricultural lit- 
erature. 

Briefly you have shown very clearly and very 
correctly that the present practice of agriculture in 
America tends toward land ruin, and that, with our 
rapldily increasing population, with continued de- 
pletion of our vast areas of cultivated soils, and 
with no possibility of any large extension of well- 
watered arable lands, we are already facing the 
serious problem of providing sufficient food for our 
own people. 

You summarize your conclusions along this line 
in the following words : 

"We have to provide for a contingency not dis- 
tant from us by nearly a generation, but already 
present. The food condition presses upon us now. 
The shortage has begun. Witness the great fall in 
wheat exports and the rise of prices. Obviously it 
is time to quit speculating about what may occur 
even twenty or thirty years hence, and begin to take 
thought for the morrow. As far as our food sup- 
ply is concerned, right now the lean years have be- 
gun." 

It is certain that the time is near when our food 
supplies shall become inadequate if our present 
practices continue, but the enforced reduction in ani- 
mal products will at least postpone the time of actual 
famine in America. I keep in mind always that we 
are feeding much grain to domestic animals, an ex- 
tremely wasteful practice so far as economy of hu- 
man food is concerned; because, as an average, ani- 
mals return in meat and milk not more than one- 
fifth as much food value as they destroy in the cor- 



328 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

responding grain consumed; and, as we gradually 
reduce the amounts of grain that are fed to cattle, 
sheep, and swine, we shall also gradually increase 
our human food supply. Ultimately our milk-pro- 
ducing and meat-producing animals will be fed only 
the grass grown upon the nonarable lands and possi- 
bly some refused forage not suitable for human 
food or more valuable for green manure, unless we 
modify our present practice and tendency, which we 
can do if the proper influences are exerted by the in- 
telligent people of this country, and thus make possi- 
ble the continuation of high standards of living for 
all our people. 

I keep in mind, too, that much of the food taken 
into the average American kitchen is wasted, and 
that progress in the science of feeding the man will 
ultimately prevent this waste and, by adding to this 
better preparation and combination of foods, will 
increase to some extent the nutritive value of our 
present food supply. 

The serious fact remains, however, that our old- 
er lands are decreasing in productive power and, in 
spite of what may be accomplished by such methods 
of conservation, we are now facing a rapidly ap- 
proaching shortage of food supplies for the rapidly 
increasing population of these United States; and 
you have put me and all other American citizens un- 
der lasting obligations to you for your frankness, 
good sense, and true patriotism in thus pointing out 
in advance our great national weakness. 

According to the statistics of the United States 
Government, a comparison of the last five years re- 
ported in this century with the last five years of the 
old country, shows, by these two five-year averages, 
that our annual production of wheat has increased 
from about five hundred million to seven hundred 
million bushels; that our annual production of corn 



THE KINDERGARTEN 329 

has increased from two and one-quarter billion to two 
and three-quarter billion bushels; that our wheat ex- 
ports have decreased from thirty-seven per cent, to 
seventeen per cent, of our total production; that 
our corn exports have decreased from nine per cent, 
to three per cent, of our total production; and yet 
the average price of wheat, by the five-year periods, 
has increased thirty-one per cent., and the aver- 
age price of corn has increased ninety-one per cent., 
during the same period. 

The latest Year Book of the Department of A^ 
riculture (1908) furnishes the average yields of 
wheat and corn for four successive ten-year periods, 
from 1866 to 1905. By combining these into two 
twenty-year periods this record of forty years shows 
that the average yield of wheat for the United 
States increased one bushel per acre, while the aver- 
age yield of corn decreased one and one-half bushels 
per acre, according to these two twenty-year aver- 
ages. 

If we consider only the statistics for the North- 
Central states, extending from Ohio to Kansas and 
from "Egypt" to Canada, the same forty-year rec- 
ord shows the average yield of wheat to have in- 
creased one-half bushel per acre, while the average 
yield of corn decreased two bushels per acre. 

Thus, nothwithstanding the great areas of rich 
virgin soils brought under cultivation in the West 
and Northwest during the last forty years, notwith- 
standing the abandonment of great areas of worn- 
out lands in the East and Southeast during the same 
years, nothwithstanding the enormous extentlon of 
dredge ditching and tile drainage, and, notwith- 
standing the marked improvement in seed and in 
the implements of cultivation, the average yield per 
acre of the two great grain crops of the United 
States has not even been maintained, the decrease in 



330 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

corn being greater than the increase in wheat, and 
not only for the entire United States, but also for 
the great new states of the corn belt and wheat belt. 

(Seasonal variations are so great that shorter 
periods than twenty-year averages cannot be con- 
sidered trustworthy for yield per acre). 

Meanwhile, the total population of the United 
States increased from thirty-eight millions in 1870 
to seventy-six millions in 1900, or an increase of 
one hundred per cent, in thirty years; and the only 
means by which we have been able to feed this in- 
crease in population has been by increasing our 
acreage of cultivated crops and by decreasing our 
exportation of foodstuffs; and I need not remind 
you that the limit to our relief is near in both of 
these directions. But have we decreased our ex- 
portation of phosphate? Oh no. On the contrary, 
under the soothing influence of the most pleasing 
and acceptable doctrine that our soil is an inde- 
structible, immutable asset, which cannot be deplet- 
ed, our exportation of rock phosphate has increased 
during the years of the present century from six 
hundred and ninety thousand tons in 1900, to one 
million three hundred and thirty thousand tons in 
1908, an increase of practically one hundred per 
cent., in accordance with the published reports of 
the United States Geological Survey. 

But I am writing to you, Mr. Hill, not only to 
thank you for what you have said and shown in the 
twenty-eight pages above referred to, but also in 
part to repay my obligation to you by giving you 
some correct information, which I am altogether 
confident you will appreciate; namely, that, while 
you are a graduate student or past master in your 
knowledge of the supply and demand of the world's 
markets, you are just entering the kindergarten class 
in the study of soil fertility, as witness the following 



THE KINDERGARTEN 331 

extracts from the one erroneous page of your 
article: 

"Right methods of farming, without which no ag- 
ricultural country such as this can hope to remain 
prosperous, or even to escape eventual poverty, are 
not complicated and are within the reach of the 
most modest means. They include a study of soils 
and seeds, so as to adapt the one to the other; a di- 
versification of industry, including the cultivation of 
different crops and the raising of live stock; a care- 
ful rotation of crops, so that the land will not be 
worn out by successive years of single cropping; in- 
telligent fertilizing, by the system of rotation, by 
cultivating leguminous plants, and, above all, by the 
economy and use of every particle of fertilizing ma- 
terial from stock barns and yards; a careful selec- 
tion of grain used for seed; and, first of all per- 
haps in importance, the substitution of the small 
farm, thoroughly tilled, for the large farm, with its 
weeds, its neglected corners, its abused soil, and its 
thin product. This will make room for the new 
population whose added product will help to re- 
store our place as an exporter of foodstuffs. Let 
us set these simple principles of the new method 
out again in order: 

^^First— The farmer must cultivate no more land 
than he can till thoroughly. With less labor he 
will get more results. Official statistics show that 
the net profit from one crop of twenty bushels of 
wheat to the acre is as great as that from two of 
sixteen, after original cost of production has been 
paid. 

''Second— There must be rotation of crops. Ten 
years of single cropping will pretty nearly wear out 
any but the richest soil. A proper three or five- 
year rotation of crops actually enriches the land. 

"Third— There must be soil renovation by fer- 



332 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

tilizing; and the best fertilizer is that provided by 
nature herself— barnyard manure. Every farmer 
can and should keep some cattle, sheep, and hogs on 
his place. The farmer and his land cannot prosper 
until stock-raising becomes an inseparable part of 
agriculture. Of all forage fed to live stock at least 
one-third in cash value remains on the land in the 
form of manure that soon restores worn-out soil to 
fertility and keeps good land from deteriorating. 
By this system the farm may be made and kept a 
source of perpetual wealth." 

Your first principle will be agreed to and em- 
phasized by all; but it should be kept in mind that 
the large farms are frequently better tilled than 
the small farms. The $200 land in the corn belt is 
usually "worked for all that's in it". It is tile- 
drained and well cultivated, and the best of seed is 
used. If more thorough tillage would increase the 
profits, these corn-belt farmers would certainly prac- 
tice it. 

It ought to be known ( i ) that as an average of 
six years the Illinois Experiment Station produced 
seventy and three-tenths bushels of corn per acre 
with the ordinary four cultivations, and only seventy- 
two and eight-tenths bushels with additional culti- 
vation even up to eight times; and (2) that the 
average yield of corn in India on irrigated land 
varies from seven bushels in poor years to twelve 
bushels in good seasons, and this is where the aver- 
age farm is about three acres in size. 

One Illinois farmer with a four-horse team raises 
more corn than ten Georgia farmers with a mule a 
piece on the same total acreage. Fertile soil and 
competent labor are the great essentials in crop 
production. A mere increase in country population 
does not increase the productive power of the soil. 
The farms down here in "Egypt" average much 



THE KINDERGARTEN 333 

smaller than those in the corn belt of Illinois, but 
our "Egyptian" farms are nevertheless poorly till- 
ed as a rule and some of them are already becom- 
ing abandoned for agricultural purposes. 

Certainly the land should always be well tilled, 
but tillage makes the soil poorer, not richer. Till- 
age liberates plant food but adds none. "A little 
farm well tilled" is alright if well manured, but it 
should not be forgotten that the men who consider 
"Ten Acres Enough" are market gardners, or truck 
farmers, who are not satisfied until in the course of 
six or eight years they have applied to their land 
about two hundred tons of manure per acre, all 
made from crops grown on other lands. 

All the manure produced in all the states would 
provide only thirty tons per acre for the farm lands 
of Illinois. In round numbers there are eighty mil- 
lion cattle and horses in the United States, and our 
annual corn crop is harvested from one hundred 
million acres. All the manure produced by all do- 
mestic animals would barely fertilize the corn lands 
with ten tons per acre if none whatever were lost or 
wasted; and, if all farm animals were figured on the 
basis of cattle, there is only one head for each ten 
acres of farm land in the United States. 

Your second principle is, that "a proper three or 
five-year rotation of crops actually enriches the 
land." 

I hope the God of truth and a long-suffering, 
misguided people will forgive you for that false 
teaching. If there is any one practice the value of 
which is fully understood by the farmers and land- 
owners in the Eastern states and in all old agricul- 
tural countries, it is the practice of crop rotation. 
Indeed, the rotation of crops is much more common 
and much better understood and much more fully 
appreciated in the East than it is in the corn belt. 



334 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

Practically all we know of crop rotation we have 
learned from the East. Every old depleted agricul- 
tural country has worn out the soil by good systems 
of crop rotation. I once took a legal option of an 
"abandoned" farm in Maryland (beautiful loca- 
tion, two miles from a railroad station, gently un- 
dulating upland loam, at $io per acre) that had 
been worn out under a four-year rotation of corn, 
wheat, meadow, and pasture. A few acres of to- 
bacco were usually grown in one corner of the corn 
field, and clover and timothy were regularly used 
for meadow and pasture. Wheat, tobacco, and 
live-stock were sold, and manure was applied for 
tobacco and so far as possible for corn also. In 
the later years of the system the ordinary commer- 
cial fertilizer was also applied for the wheat at the 
usual rate of two hundred pounds per acre, this 
having become a "necessity" toward the end of this 
slow but sure system of land ruin. 

The "simple principles" of your "new method" 
were understood and practiced in Roman agriculture 
two thousand years ago; and they included not only 
thorough tillage, careful seed selection, regular crop 
rotation, and the use of farm manure, but also the 
use of green manures. Thus Cato wrote : 

"Take care to have your wheat weeded twice— 
with the hoe, and also by hand." 

And again Cato wrote: 

"Wherein does a good system of agriculture con- 
sist? In the first place, in thorough plowing; in the 
second place, in thorough plowing; and, in the third 
place. In manuring." 

Varro, who lived at the same time as Cato, wrote 
as follows : 

"The land must rest every second year, or be 
sown with lighter kinds of seeds, which prove less 
exhausting to the soil. A field Is not sown entirely 



THE KINDERGARTEN 335 

for the crop which is to be obtained the same year, 
but partly for the effect to be produced in the fol- 
lowing; because there are many plants which, when 
cut down and left on the land, improve the soil. 
Thus lupines, for instance, are plowed into a poor 
soil in lieu of manure. Horse manure is about the 
best suited for meadow land, and so in general is 
that of beasts of burden fed on barley; for manure 
made from this cereal makes the grass grow luxuri- 
antly."^ 

Virgil wrote in his Geogics : 

"Still will the seeds, tho chosen with toilsome pains. 

Degenerate, if man's industrious hand 

Cull not each year the largest and the best." 

It was in 1859 that Baron von Liebig wrote as 
follows, regarding these and similar ancient teach- 
ings : 

"All these rules had, as history tells us, only a 
temporary effect; they hastened the decay of Ro- 
man agriculture; and the farmer ultimately found 
that he had exhausted all his expedients to keep his 
fields fruitful and reap remunerative crops from 
them. Even in Columella's time, the produce of the 
land was only fourfold. It is not the land itself 
that constitutes the farmer's wealth, but it is in the 
constituents of the soil, which serve for the nutri- 
tion of plants, that this wealth truly consists." 

Suppose, Mr. Hill, that a successful American 
farmer should tell you that your bank account will 
actually increase if you will give from three to five 
members of your family the privilege of writing 
checks instead of following the single checking sys- 
tem! "But," you will ask, "doesn't rotation pro- 
duce a larger aggregate yield of crops than the sin- 
gle crop system?" Certainly, and, likewise, a ro- 



336 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

tation of the check book will produce a larger ag- 
gregate of the checks written; but the ultimate effect 
on the bank deposit is the same as on the natural 
deposit of plant food in the soil, and finally the 
checks will not be honored. Indeed, it would be a 
fine sort of perpetual motion if we could actually en- 
rich the soil by the simple rotation of crops, and 
thus make something out of nothing. 

Consider, for example, the common three-year 
rotation, corn, wheat, and clover. A fifty-bushel 
crop of corn removes twelve pounds of phosphorus 
from the soil; the twenty-five bushel wheat crop 
draws out eight pounds; and then the two-ton crop 
of clover withdraws ten pounds, making thirty 
pounds required for this simple rotation. The most 
common type of land in St. Mary county, Mary- 
land, after two hundred years of farming, contains 
phosphorus enough in the soil for five rotations of 
this simple sort. Mathematically that is all the fur- 
ther traffic in rotations that soil can bear. Agricul- 
turally that soil has refused to bear any sort of 
traffic, whether single or in rotations, and has been 
abandoned for farm use except where fertilized. 

These crops would remove from the soil one 
hundred and twenty-four pounds of nitrogen in the 
corn and wheat, and the roots and stubble of the 
clover would contain forty pounds of nitrogen. 
Now, if the soil furnishes seventy-six pounds of ni- 
trogen to the corn crop and forty-eight pounds to 
the wheat crop, will it furnish forty pounds to the 
clover crop, or as much as remains in the roots and 
stubble? If so, how does the rotation actually en- 
rich the soil in nitrogen? 

You will be interested to know that there are 
many exact records of the effect upon the soil of the 
rotation of crops. This particular three-year rota- 
tion has been followed at the Ohio Agricultural Ex- 



THE KINDERGARTEN 337 

periment Station for a dozen years, and the aver- 
age yield of wheat has been, not twenty bushels, not 
sixteen bushels, but eleven bushels per acre, where no 
plant food was applied; although where farm 
manure was used the wheat yielded twenty bushels, 
and with manure and fine-ground natural rock 
phosphate added the average yield of wheat for the 
thirteen years has been more than twenty-six 
bushels per acre. The corresponding yields for 
corn are thirty-four, fifty-three and sixty-one bushels, 
and for clover they are one and two-tenths, one and 
six-tenths and two and two-tenths tons of hay per 
acre. 

You will wish to know also that the Ohio Station 
has conducted a five-year rotation of corn, oats, 
wheat, clover, and timothy for the last fifteen years, 
both with and without the application of commer- 
cial plant food. As an average of the fifteen years 
the unfertilized and fertilized tracts have produced, 
respectively: 

30 and 48 bushels of corn 

32 and 50 bushels of oats 

II and 27 bushels of wheat 

.9 and 1.6 tons of clover 

1.3 and 1.8 tons of timothy 

In 1908 the unfertilized land produced nine- 
tenths ton of clover while land treated with farm 
manure produced three and two-tenth tons per acre. 

You will welcome the information that the aver- 
age yield of wheat on an Illinois experiment field 
down here in *'Egypt," in a four-year rotation, in- 
cluding both cowpeas and clover, has been eleven 
and one-half bushels on unfertilized land, fourteen 
bushels where legume crops have been plowed un- 
der, and twenty-seven bushels where limestone and 



338 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

phosphorus have been added with the legume crops 
turned under; and that the aggregate value of the 
four crops, corn, oats, wheat, and clover, from an- 
other "Egyptian" farm, has been $25.97 P^'* ^^^^ ^^^ 
unfertilized land, and $54.24 where limestone and 
phosphorus have been applied. 

In your very busy and very successful railroad 
experience, you may have overlooked the reports 
of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Sta- 
tion, showing the results of a four-year rotation of 
crops that has been conducted with very great care 
for more than a quarter of a century. These, you 
will agree, are exactly such absolute data as we 
sorely need just now when facing the stupendous 
problem of changing from an agricultural system 
whose equal has never been known for rapidity of 
soil exhaustion to a system which shall actually en- 
rich the land. By averaging the results from the 
first twelve years and also those from the second 
twelve years, In this rotation of corn, oats, wheat, 
and hay (clover and timothy), we find that the 
yields have decreased as follows : 

Corn decreased . 34 per cent. 

Oats decreased . 31 per cent. 

Wheat decreased 4 per cent. 

Hay decreased 29 per cent. 

Appalling, Is It not? It Is the best Information 
America affords in answer to the question, Will the 
rotation of crops actually enrich the land? 

No, Sir. We cannot make crops nor bank ac- 
counts out of nothing. The rotation of crops does 
not enrich the soil, does not even maintain the fer- 
tility of the soil. On the contrary, the rotation of 
crops, like the rotation of your check book, actually 
depletes the soil more rapidly than the single sys- 



THE KINDERGARTEN 339 

tem; and, If you ever have your choice between two 
farms of equal original fertility, one of which has 
been cropped with wheat only, and the other with a 
good three or five-year rotation, for fifty years, take 
my advice and choose the "worn-out" wheat farm. 
Then adopt a good system of cropping with a mod- 
erate use of clover, and you will soon discover that 
your land Is not worn out, but "almos' new Ian' " as 
a good Swede friend of mine reported who made 
a similar choice. But beware of the land that has 
been truly worn out under a good rotation, which 
avoids the Insects and diseases of the single crop 
system, and also furnishes regularly a moderate 
amount of clover roots which decay very rapidly 
and thus stimulate the decomposition of the old hu- 
mus and the liberation of mineral plant food from 
the soil. 

Perhaps you have heard of Rothamsted. If not, 
your kindergarten teacher Is at fault. A four-year 
rotation of crops has been followed on Agdell field 
for more than sixty years. An average of the crop 
yields of the last twenty years reveals : 

( 1 ) That the yield of turnips has decreased 
from ten tons to one-half ton per acre since 1848. 

(2) That the yield of barley has decreased from 
forty-six bushels to fourteen bushels since 1849, 

(3) That the yield of clover has decreased from 
two and eight-tenth tons to one-half ton since 1850. 

(4) That the yield of wheat has decreased from 
thirty bushels to twenty-four bushels since 1851, 
wheat, grown once in four years, being the only crop 
worth raising as an average of the last twenty years. 

No, Sir. Neither optimism, nor ignorance, nor 
bigotry, nor deception can controvert these facts. 

Do you know that the people of India rotate 
their crops? They do; and they use many legumes; 
and some of their soils now contain only a trace of 



340 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

phosphorus, too small to be determined In figures by 
the chemist. Do you know there are more of our 
own Aryan Race hungry in India than live in the 
United States? 

Do you know that Russia regularly practices a 
three-year rotation and actually harvests only two 
crops in three years, with one year of green man- 
uring? Yes, and the average yield of wheat for 
twenty years is only eight and one-quarter bushels 
per acre. 

Think on these things. 

Your third principle is, that ''of all forage fed 
to live stock at least one-third in cash value re- 
mains on the land in the form of manure that soon 
restores worn-out soil to fertility and keeps good 
land from deteriorating. By this system the farm 
may be made and kept a source of perpetual wealth." 

I grieve with you; pity 'tis, 'tis not true. 

No, Sir. Neither crops nor animals can be made 
out of nothing, and no independent system of live- 
stock farming can add to the soil a pound of any 
element of plant food, aside from nitrogen, and 
even this addition is due to the legume crops grown 
and not to the live stock. 

Under the best system of live-stock farming 
about three-fourths of the nitrogen, three-fourths 
of the phosphorus, and one-third of the organic 
matter contained in the food consumed can be re- 
turned to the land if the total excrements, both 
solid and liquid, are saved without loss. Of course, 
the produce used for bedding can all be returned, 
but it could also be returned without live stock. 

Under a good system of crop rotation with all 
grain sold from the farm it Is possible to return to 
the soil more than one-third of the phosphorus and 
more than one-half of the organic matter contained 
in the crops, and even as much nitrogen as all of 



THE KINDERGARTEN 341 

the crops remove from the land in the grain sold. 
Thus, with a four-year rotation of wheat, corn, 
oats, and clover, and a catch crop of clover grown 
with the wheat and turned under late the following 
spring for corn, we may plow under three tons of 
clover containing one hundred and twenty pounds 
of nitrogen, in return for the one hundred and nine- 
teen pounds removed from the soil for the twenty- 
five bushels of wheat, fifty bushels of corn, and fifty 
bushels of oats. These amounts of grain and the 
two bushels of clover seed might be sold from the 
farm, while the two and one-half tons of straw, one 
and one-half tons of stalks, and three tons of clover 
might be returned to the land. These amounts ag- 
gregate seven tons of organic matter, or the equiva- 
lent of seventeen tons of manure, measured by the 
nitrogen content, or of twenty-four tons, measured 
by the content of organic matter. To replace the 
twenty-two pounds of phosphorus sold from the 
farm in the grain of these four crops would require 
the expenditure of sixty-six cents at present prices 
for raw phosphate delivered at Heart-of-Egypt. 

I have no doubt you will be glad to have your 
attention called to the fact that the world does not 
live wholly, or even largely, upon meat and milk. 
Bread is the staff of life, and I note from your 
World's Work article that you prefer to have the 
bread made of wheat. Thus, most farmers must 
raise and sell grain and vegetables. 

If no independent system of live-stock farming 
can add a pound of phosphorus to the one hundred 
and sixty pounds still remaining in the great body 
of the level uplands constituting forty-one per cent, 
of St. Mary county, and forty-five thousand seven 
hundred and seventy acres of Prince George county, 
Maryland, adjoining the District of Columbia, nor 
even maintain the phosphorus supply in our good 



342 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

lands, then what must we do to be fed? 

Manifestly, we should make large use of legume 
crops for the production of farm manure or green 
manure; and, manifestly, America should stop sell- 
ing every year for five million dollars enough raw 
phosphate for the production of one billion dollars 
worth of corn, valued at the consumer's price. How 
long can we afford to give away a thousand million 
for five million? 

Do you know, Mr. Hill, that, at the Second Con- 
servation Conference called by the President of the 
United States, Doctor Van Hise, of the University 
of Wisconsin was the only man to raise his voice in 
the interest of the common soils of America? For 
three days the statesman and experts discussed the 
forests, forests, forests, and the waters, waters, and 
the coal and iron; and for fifteen minutes President 
Van Hise pleaded for the conservation of phos- 
phate, the master key to all our material prosperity; 
and he was called a crank with a hobby. 

With deep respect, I am, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Percy Johnston. 







7 ivish you could have seen the untreated check strips. 



CHAPTER XLII 

Advance Information 
Heart-of-Egypt, November 14, 1909. 

DEAR father and mother: I can scarcely 
reahze that I have been an "Egyptian" 
for almost two years. I feel that the 
time has been shorter than two months 
of school-teaching. 

Percy is so encouraged with the 
crops that I rejoice with him, although I could never 
weep with him unless I weep for joy. He says the 
crops needed only that I should stroll over the fields 
with him; that they would grow rapidly if I only 
looked at them. Think of it — I drove the mower to 
cut hay, — not all of the 80 acres, to be sure, but I 
cut where it yielded two tons per acre. That is on 
No. 4, where Percy applied his first cars of lime- 
stone. I wish you could have seen the untreated 
strips — no clover and only half a ton of weedy tim- 
othy, while the rest of No. 4 and No. 6 were clean 
hay of mixed alsike and timothy. Percy says that 
No. 4 produced as much real hay last year as all the 
rest of the farm has produced since he came, and 
that the hay crop this year is worth as much for feed 
as all that has been harvested during the previous 
five years; and the cattle and horses seem to agree 
with him. 

We sold our main lot of hogs for $6^4, and have 
another lot to go later. We are getting so many 
horses and cattle on the place, that we are going 
out of the hog business. 

Percy says that hogs belong more properly in the 
corn belt, than In the wheat and fruit belt. You 

343 



344 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

know the year I came the corn crop was on No. i, 
which had never grown anything but corn, oats, and 
wheat, so far as we can learn; and the corn was 
so poor the hogs ate most of it in two months' time. 
During the same two months the price of hogs drop- 
ped from 7 to 4J/^ cents, so that the hogs were worth 
no more after eating the corn crop than they were 
before. 

Next year we are to have corn on No. 4, and 
Percy says it will be the first time that corn has had 
a ''ghost of a show to make a decent crop" since he 
bought the place. The spring before we were mar- 
ried he reseeded that forty, sowing mixed alsike and 
timothy. The clover came on finely, evidently be- 
cause the scanty growth of clover the year before 
had at least allowed the field to become thoroughly 
infected with the clover bacteria. There was no 
clover on the unlimed strip. So we say that lime- 
stone and bacteria brought clover. The hay and 
other feed has made manure enough so that No. 4 
has been completely covered with six tons per acre, 
and the phosphate has also been applied; so with ma- 
nure and phosphate on clover ground we hope to 
grow corn next year, if we have good weather. 

The phosphate has also been put on some of the 
other forties. I convinced him that the money will 
pay a higher rate of interest in phosphate than it 
would in the savings bank, even if he put it on before 
manure and clover could be plowed under. The ex- 
periments of several states show this very conclu- 
sively. 

The corn is on No. 3 this year and it is the best 
crop in the six years. Percy says the "Terry Act" 
(which means lots of work in preparing the land) is 
some help, but he thinks the phosphate shows against 
the check strips. The young wheat on No. 2 is look- 
ing fine, and with both limestone and phosphate on 




'But I cut where it yielded two tons per acre." 



ADVANCE INFORMATION 345 

that field and the extra work on the seed bed, we 
hope for a better crop than we have ever grown on 
a full forty; even though we must depend solely up- 
on our reserve stock of nitrogen for the crop. We 
are all about as jealous of that reserve stock of or- 
ganic matter and nitrogen as we are of the Winter- 
bine bank account. 

I cannot forget how Percy tried to persuade me 
to postpone our wedding for a year because, as he 
said, the hogs had taken his corn crop and given 
nothing in return for it; and above all how he ob- 
jected to my reembursing the Winterbine reserve 
from my teacher's wages to the extent of $250, 
which he had drawn in part to tide over the hard 
times, and in part to come to see me that Easter. 
But I am glad to have him still insist upon it that 
that uncertain venture proved his best investment, 
even if he does tease by adding that it paid one 
hundred and fifty per cent, net profit at Winter- 
bine. 

We are selling some cows this fall,— trying to 
weed out our herd by the Babcock test which shows 
that "some cows don't pay their board and keep," 
to quote Governor Hoard's lecture on "Cows versus 
Cows," which Percy heard at Olney the winter Pro- 
fessor Barstow was married. The "versus cows" 
are worth only $45. 

I cannot tell you how I have enjoyed the summer. 
Sir Charles Henry is the dearest child, and his 
grandmother insists upon it that it is better for me 
to help Percy in the field with such light work as I 
can do, and I am out for a few hours every day 
when the weather is good. Percy's mother is such 
a dear. I am sure she could be no more sweet and 
loving to an own daughter. She had Percy all to 
herself for so long that I was really afraid 
she might not like to share him with me, but Percy 



346 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

says that it was his mother who persuaded him to 
make us that Easter visit. We tell her that she 
hasn't much use for either of us now, and that we are 
likely to get jealous because Charles Henry gets so 
much of her affection. 

I forgot to tell you of Percy's four-acre patch of 
wheat. He said it is so long to wait till 19 12 for his 
first wheat crop on land that had grown clover at 
least once during historic times that he thought he 
would fix up a little patch to grow a crop of wheat, 
just to see how real wheat would look; or, as he 
sometimes says, to see how wheat grows in Egypt 
when it has a ghost of a chance. 

He treated a four-acre patch down by the wood's 
pasture with limestone, phosphorus, and farm ma- 
nure, did the "Terry Act" in preparing the seed 
bed, and drilled in a good variety of wheat, on Oc- 
tober 17, — a little later than he likes to finish sow- 
ing wheat. It came up with a good stand but did not 
make very much fall growth, partly owing to the dry 
weather. In the spring the man came across the 
patch and reported to Percy that the wheat was 
mighty small and he guessed it was "gone up," al- 
though it seemed to be all alive. Percy said that he 
would not worry about it if it were alive because 
the wheat would find something to please it when it 
really woke up in the spring. I reckon it did, for a 
neighbor passed on his way to town in early May 
and called over the fence to Percy that his patch 
of rye down by the woods was looking fine. Well 
the four acres yielded 129^ bushels, or a little 
more than thirty-two bushels per acre. Percy said if 
he could have eighty acres of it and sell it for $1.18 
a bushel, the same as he got for the last he sold, it 
would amount to twice the original cost of the land, 
— and then some. 

Mr. Barton asked him if he could not raise "just 



ADVANCE INFORMATION 347 

as good crops with good old farm manure," and if 
he could not build up his whole farm with farm 
manure. Percy said yes, but he would need three 
thousand tons for the first application. Mr. Bar- 
ton then suggested that that was more than the whole 
township produced. 

No. 5 has been in pasture for three years, clover 
and grass having been seeded in 1906, even though 
the wet weather had prevented the seeding of wheat 
the fall before, and the ground was left too rough 
for the mower. Percy hopes to have that forty 
completely covered with manure by the time he will 
be ready to apply the phosphate and plow it under 
for the 191 1 corn crop. 

Now your "Egyptian" son has just read over this 
long, long letter, and he says that if I were a real 
wise old farmer I would not begin to talk about re- 
sults before a single forty acres of grain had had a 
ghost of a chance to make a crop. He says that 
every bushel of corn, oats, and wheat that this old 
farm has produced during the last six years has been 
wholly at the expense of the meager stock of re- 
serve nitrogen still left in the soil after seventy-five 
years of almost continuous effort to "work the land 
for all that's in it." He says that we have no right 
to expect really good crops until after the second 
rotation is completed, because the clover grown dur- 
ing the first rotation does not have a fair show, the 
limestone not yet being well mixed with the soil, the 
phosphorus supply being inadequate, the inoculation 
or infection being imperfect, and no provision what- 
ever having been made to supply decaying organic 
matter in advance of the first clover crop. I think 
he is right as usual and I promise to give no more 
advance information hereafter except upon inquiry, 
at least not until 19 18, when the first wheat crop 
will be grown on land which has been twice in clover. 



348 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

We are mighty sorry not to be able to be with you 
for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but really we can- 
not go to the expense; our house is so small (we just 
must build a larger barn) and our home equipment 
is so meager that, in the words which you will re- 
member Percy told us his mother credited to Mrs. 
Barton, I feel that as yet I must say, 

"Do come over when you can." 
Your happy, loving daughter, 

Adelaide. 

P. S.— Three big oil wells, belonging to the class 
called "gushers," have been struck about seven or 
eight miles from Poorland Farm. We are all get- 
ting interested except Percy. He says he does not 
want any oil wells on his six rotation forties or in 
the wood's pasture, but he might let them bore in 
the twelve-acre orchard, which has never produced 
but one crop that paid for itself, and the profit from 
that is about all gone for the later years of spray- 
ing. 

The first oil boom in Illinois was at Casey where 
they struck oil six or eight years ago, but they say 
the wells there are dry already and they have to go 
back to farming again to get a living. Of course if 
we could get a hundred-barrel well on every ten 
acres and get a royalty of $400 a day for a few 
years, it would help out nicely, but the oil business is 
uncertain and short-lived, whereas, to quote Percy, 
"the soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which 
her children must always draw their nourishment." 

Some have spoken to Percy about the coal right, 
but he says if there are ten thousand tons of coal per 
acre under Poorland Farm, he will save it for 
Charles Henry before he will allow anyone else to 
take it out for less than ten cents a ton. He says 
that just because the United States Government was 
generous enough to give the settler three hundred 



ADVANCE INFORMATION 349 

and twenty acres of land, and foolish enough to 
throw in with it three million tons of coal if it hap- 
pened to lie beneath, is no reason why he should sell 
it to any coal company or coal trust at the rate of 
ten tons for one cent, which is the same as ten dol- 
lars per acre for the coal right. He says if Uncle 
Sam ever wants to assume his rightful ownership of 
all coal, phosphate deposits, or other minerals whose 
conservation and proper use is essential to the con- 
tinued prosperity of all the people, then our coal 
shall be his; but, if he does not want it then he will 
consider nothing less than leasing on the basis of a 
royalty of ten cents a ton to be paid to him, his 
heirs, and assigns, etc.; but even then he wants 
enough coal left to hold up the earth, so that there 
will be no interference with the tile drains which 
he expects sometime to put down at an expense ex- 
ceeding the original cost of the land. 

With much love, 

Adelaide. 
P. S. — Percy sends his love to grandma and a 
photograph for Papa, from which you will see that 
on such land as ours no limestone or phosphate 
means no clover. — A. W. J. 



350 THE STORY OF THE SOIL 

The author takes this occasion to say to the kind 
reader who has had the patience and the necessary 
interest in the stupendous problem now confronting 
the American people, of devising and adopting into 
general practice independent systems of farming that 
will restore, increase, and permanently maintain the 
productive power of American farm lands, — to those 
who have read thus far the Story of the Soil and 
who may have some desire for more specific and 
more complete or comprehensive information upon 
the subject, — to all such he takes this occasion to say 
that this volume is based scientifically upon "Soil 
Fertility and Permanent Agriculture."* 

This little book is intended as an introduction to 
the subject; the other may be classed as technical, 
but nevertheless can be understood by any one who 
gives it serious thought. This book tells the true 
story of the soil, for which the other gives a thou- 
sand proofs. 

Grateful acknowledgment is here expressed that 
even the measure of success thus far attained on 
Poorland Farm has been possible largely through 
the cooperation of a beloved brother, Carl Edwin, 
the man who does a world of work. 



*Ginn and Company, Boston. 



DCl 24 1910 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



OCT 24 \91Q 



